


a moony has spawned in the server

by spellingmynamewrong



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Asian Sirius Black, Coming Out, Coming of Age, Discord (Application), F/F, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jewish Remus Lupin, M/M, Mutual Pining, Person of Color Sirius Black, Remus Lupin & Lily Evans Potter Friendship, Slow Burn, Smart Sirius Black, Texting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 69,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25961545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellingmynamewrong/pseuds/spellingmynamewrong
Summary: A college admissions Discord server isn’t the worst place to meet the love of your life. Probably.Or, Remus wants to write poetry, Sirius would rather die than join Skull and Bones, and growing up is both inexorable and terrifying.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Minor Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes - Relationship, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 485
Kudos: 324





	1. august i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus hears a talk about college, plays some Minecraft, and makes a decision he will most likely regret.

Remus can name three things in the world he likes talking about less than college admissions, and all of them are the fact that he had cancer. 

His mother, however, seems to think differently. When he woke up this morning to her warm smile and insistence that she would be giving him a surprise—a good surprise, she reassured him—he didn’t expect to be ushered into her Subaru and driven to the town library to a talk given by a college consulting company.

He fidgets uncomfortably in his seat as the speaker drones on about Crafting Your Spike and Presenting Your Best Self. The speaker, who introduced himself as Horace Slughorn, has a big, booming laugh and an honest-to-God handkerchief tucked in the pocket of his shirt. If Remus didn’t know better, he would think that Slughorn came right out of the sixties. 

His mother, by his side, is diligently taking notes on everything Slughorn says. Glancing at her notepad, he can spot scribbles of _strong supplemental essays_ and _early action._ He gulps. 

Here’s the thing: of course Remus wants to go to college. He’s been looking forward to it for the past three years. Actually, if he’s being honest, he’s been looking forward to it for half his life, ever since his father decided that with all the hospital visits, it would be far easier to homeschool Remus than continue to send him to the local middle school. Online school isn’t the same at all. 

Remus Lupin is seventeen years old, has two friends, only one of whom he’s actually met, and spends the majority of his days in bed on his laptop, headphones in and the world blocked out. Of course he wants to go to college—go somewhere he won’t be known as the Sick Kid, make new friends, take classes in person and not over video call software. 

But actually applying to college? That terrifies him. 

It’s not just that Remus is boring. It’s that he might be the _most_ boring seventeen-year-old on Earth.

Here is the daily routine of one Remus John Lupin, resident of Fairfax, Virginia, population approximately 13,000: on weekdays during the school year, Remus wakes up at eight in the morning. He then sits in bed with his laptop for seven hours straight, listening to pre-recorded lectures, commenting on discussion boards, and completing virtual assignments. After that, he participates in his sole “impressive” extracurricular—editing poetry for the youth literary magazine _The Quibbler_ —wastes time on Reddit and Tumblr, and does his homework. If he has time, he’ll play League of Legends or Minecraft with his only in-person friend, Peter Pettigrew, and then he'll go to bed, always before midnight. Weekends are effectively the same, minus the lectures and adding in more League. Cycle, rinse, and repeat.

And as a result, he has absolutely nothing to write about for his Common App essay, nothing to write about for his supplemental essays, nothing to put in his activities section. Unless, of course, the admissions officers at Brown want to read about the time he and Peter managed to beat a Grandmaster team in League. 

“Remus?” He looks up to find his mother, her hand on his shoulder and a beaming smile on her face. “Mr. Slughorn says that he’s willing to answer any questions you have about the application process. It would be good to talk to him.”

The look on her face tells him that she’s not asking—she’s demanding. Remus sighs, standing up.

A small crowd has formed around Slughorn, one largely made up of prying parents. He spots a few other teenagers standing off to the side, looking alternatively nervous and horrified. He tries to catch the eye of the closest one, a girl with blonde hair who’s picking at her nails. Unfortunately, scraping off the last of her purple nail polish seems to be far more interesting to her than Remus. 

“Introduce yourself now,” his mother hisses, and Remus steps closer to Mr. Slughorn, who’s finishing up with a mother-son duo who seem to have an unending supply of questions about UC Berkeley, apparently Slughorn’s alma mater. Remus thinks that if Slughorn is the pinnacle of a UC Berkeley alum, he really doesn’t want to go there.

“Hi,” Remus starts slowly, playing with the left sleeve of his sweater. There’s a growing hole near the bottom of the sleeve. He should probably get that fixed. “I’m Remus Lupin, and—”

“I’m his mother, Hope Lupin,” his mother interjects, holding a hand out to Slughorn. From the look in her eyes, Remus isn’t making a good enough impression. “Remus is seventeen, and he’s going to be a senior this fall, so we’d love to have some guidance on the application process. He’s been homeschooled all of high school, you see—he was ill as a child, so his father and I decided it would be better for him to take online classes, though he also took some courses at NVCC last summer.”

Slughorn hums appreciatively. “Remus, what schools are you interested in?”

“Er—” Remus wracks his brain for the long list of colleges his mother made him write out. “Brown, definitely. UVA, William and Mary, VCU, and George Mason. Maybe Yale? Stanford, Wesleyan, Amherst, Hamilton, Vassar, Pomona, Williams, USC.”

“Johns Hopkins and Georgetown too, remember?” his mother adds. Remus sighs. If his mother could do anything to sway the minds of admissions officers, she would make it so that he couldn’t go more than a hundred miles from home. 

“That’s a very ambitious list!” Slughorn chuckles. Slughorn’s tone, however, makes it exceedingly clear that the list is less ambitious than quixotic. 

“Remus is very, very smart,” his mother says, her beaming smile returning. “He has a 4.0 GPA, and he scored a 35 on the ACT!”

Remus would like very, very much to die on the spot. 

“That’s very good,” Slughorn says. “But more importantly, Remus, what do you like to do? What are you involved in?”

“Um,” Remus starts. What _is_ he involved in? _The Quibbler,_ of course, but what else? He doesn’t think “video games” will be impressive to any admissions committee. “I write sometimes. I edit stuff for a literary magazine. I volunteer?”

“He’s an amazing writer,” his mother gushes. “He’s won awards for it! I can show you some pictures of them, if you’d like.”

Remus wonders what sins he’s committed in a past life to deserve this. Maybe he almost killed a classmate. Maybe he hid a dark and tragic past from his best friends. Maybe he abandoned his wife and kids. Yeah, the wife and kids thing. That would probably do it. 

“That won’t be necessary,” Slughorn says. He looks thoughtful, and not in a good way. “Mrs. Lupin, you said before that Remus here was ill?” 

“He’s all better now. It never recurred,” his mother assures Slughorn. Remus has to resist the urge to ask why he can’t go to a regular high school if he’s so much better now, and dully notes how his mother, even after four years spent in and out of hospital waiting rooms, is still unable to say the word leukemia. 

“A struggle,” Slughorn says, nodding approvingly. “He should write about it for his personal statement. Many of the students I work with would give anything to go through something like that. One of my old students wrote about his cystic fibrosis, you know, and he goes to Yale now—”

“Remus will not be defined by his illness,” his mother snaps, and wow, this is the fastest heel-face turn Remus has ever witnessed. “Maybe your student needed to write about his own condition, but Remus doesn’t need to. He can get into a good college all by himself.”

Slughorn looks dumbstruck. “Now, Mrs. Lupin, that isn’t what I was trying to say—”

“Remus, we’re leaving,” his mother says, taking him by the arm. For the first time today, Remus is grateful for his mother’s stubbornness. He lets her lead him out of the air-conditioned library and into the sweltering heat of the Virginia summer. His mother’s face is an intriguing combination of fury and concern, and on the entirety of the drive back to their house, she fusses over him, as if Slughorn’s careless words could have wounded him fatally. Maybe, he thinks hopefully, this will be the end of the college talk for now.

* * *

It is not the end of the college talk.

Throughout all of dinner, his mother had relayed the contents of Slughorn’s speech to his father, who is now also determined to Make Remus Write His College Essays. It made even the ziti bolognese, objectively the best food in the universe, seem marginally less delicious. Remus believes this is excruciatingly unfair, seeing as it’s only August and his first applications are due in November, but his father doesn’t seem to feel the same way. By the end of the week, he’s expected to have completed the first draft of his Common App essay. 

He relays this to Peter that night, when they’re calling and attempting to—key word, attempting—explore a woodland mansion in Minecraft. 

Remus met Peter on the first day of second grade. Peter had twisted his ankle in gym class during a particularly vicious game of capture the flag, and Remus was designated by the gym teacher to bring him to the nurse’s office. There, they formed a tentative friendship over saltine crackers and the fussing of the nurse. After Remus got sick and his father pulled him out of school, the only person who kept in contact with him was Peter. At the time, Remus suspected it was because otherwise, there would be no one to play Call of Duty with Peter. A decade of friendship later, though, Remus thinks that it doesn’t really matter why Peter kept being friends with him—only that he did. 

“I think I would’ve just fallen asleep if my mom brought me to one of those things,” Peter says. On screen, he barely avoids being hit by an enraged vindicator. “Remus, why can’t we just burn this down again? We’d still get all the loot.”

“Because that’s cheating,” Remus replies. Never before has he been so grateful for his enchanted diamond sword. “What the fuck, where did that creeper come from?”

“Turn up your sound,” Peter suggests. “Anyway, you’re lucky. We’ve been getting those talks at school for _years._ I think my mom bought an SAT prep book for me when I was still in the womb.”

“No, you’re lucky,” Remus counters. “I feel like I’m so behind, you know? Everyone else has actual extracurriculars, and they all know what they’re going to write about for—fuck, Pete, watch out!” He winces as a creeper manages to blow up Peter, taking a good chunk of a wall out with him. “We really should have brought more torches.”

“I’ll go mine for a bit,” Peter says. “Then we’ll be good. And you have extracurriculars, don’t you? With your writing and stuff.”

“Yeah, but they aren’t impressive compared to everything people who go to regular school can do,” Remus says. Finally, the first floor of the mansion seems to be clear of mobs. He checks the chest in the nearest room for loot and pockets the CD and ten iron ingots he finds, leaving behind the rotten flesh and string. “You’ve got Science Olympiad and marching band and Key Club, and I have editing mediocre poetry. Even if you ignore that, I still need to find a topic for my Common App essay, and I don’t really want to write a sob story about being sick and shit.”

On the other side of the call, Remus can hear contemplative munching. Peter’s probably working his way through a bag of Ruffles again. “I know a Discord server that can help with that, I think,” he says, still chewing. “My friend told me about it. I think it’s called the Admissions Advice Corner? Something like that. You can probably find the invite online.”

“Pete, Discord is for gaming, not college admissions,” Remus says, sighing. “Should I wait for you to finish mining before we do the second floor?”

“You can go ahead,” Peter says. “I almost have a full stack of coal. Anyway, I don’t know. Maybe it’ll help? I’m sure there are other people who are homeschooled on there. They could tell you how they got through this.”

“Maybe,” Remus says doubtfully. Why is the second floor of the mansion so _dark?_ Oh, right, they ran out of torches. That would do it. “Anyway, please hurry up, there’s a fuckton of evokers here, where the _fuck_ did that vindicator come from, shit, shit, shit!”

He groans as the too-familiar death screen pops up. 

“Sorry,” Peter says, not sounding the least bit sorry. Remus hears another loud crunch and sighs. 

It takes them the better half of another hour to fight their way through the mansion, by which time it’s thirty minutes to midnight. Remus has died three times, Peter four, and he’s resolved to listen to Peter next time and just burn the whole structure down. The loot they got wasn’t even that good.

“Anyway, just think about it,” Peter says, yawning. “You never know? Maybe you’ll find a girlfriend there.”

“I really don’t think I’ll find a girlfriend over Discord,” Remus says. Or a boyfriend, for that matter. “Even if I could, I’m _really_ not interested in e-girls.”

“Oh, right,” Peter says. “You’re bisexual.”

Remus can’t see Peter’s face, but he can imagine it vividly—Peter nodding in what he probably thinks is a sagely manner as he puts away his share of the loot in his storage room. On the one hand, Remus is glad to have a supportive friend, someone he could come out to without the fear of retribution or backlash. On the other hand, he wonders how someone who can build a suspension bridge out of _popsicle sticks_ can be so oblivious. 

“No, it’s not because I’m bi, Peter,” Remus says. “It’s because I’m not interested in dating e-girls, e-boys, or e-nonbinary-people.”

“What if they’re hot?” Peter asks. “They could be super hot. Like, Pokimane hot.”

“First of all, no, and second of all, still not interested,” Remus says. “Good night, Peter.” He ends the call and closes out of Minecraft, sighing.

He changes into his pajamas quickly and then crawls into bed. When he opens up his laptop, he intends to just visit Reddit before he falls asleep, receiving his daily dose of brain bleach by means of r/Catswhoyell. Somehow, though, he finds himself Googling “Admissions Advice Corner Discord server,” and, against his better judgement, accepting the invitation to the server. 

He scans the channels quickly—#college-lists, #decisions, #ask-an-undergrad, #extracurricular-advice, and more—which are about what he expected from a college admissions server, to be honest. He makes a mental note to use the third one in the near future. And then, again against his better judgement, he opens #general. 

**Admissions Advice Corner  
** **#general | Please remember to visit #rules if you’re new and role yourself appropriately!** ****

**stream be the cowboy [washu ‘23]** (Today at 11:33 PM)  
i fucking hate psets someone kill me  
my code just ISN’T WORKING???? and i don’t know why  
and OF COURSE my roommate chooses TONIGHT to be out of the dorm  
please come help me in #homework-help ty i’ll pay you in cookies

 **peterparker** (Today at 11:34 PM) **  
** Can someone (preferably an undergrad) look over my resume? I need to send one to my guidance counselor by tmrw

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 11:34 PM)  
try #extracurricular-advice

 **peterparker** (Today at 11:34 PM) **  
** Thank you!

 **amy [ucla ‘22]** (Today at 11:35 PM)  
tbh never gonna give you up is legitimately a Jam and rickrolling is a Gift to our planet  
like people could be baiting you with goat pics or something but No they give you a Perfectly Good Song and you complain?? maybe you’re the problem here

 **starman but like, COOLER** (Today at 11:36 PM) **  
** ok rickroller  
anyway join vc!!!!  
@sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]  
join us!!!!!!

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 11:36 PM)  
why

 **starman but like, COOLER** (Today at 11:37 PM) **  
** we’re trying to get alice to play her guitar for us  
i asked for all too well  
are you really going to turn down the chance to hear OUR alice sing taylor  
especially the Best Version of taylor

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 11:37 PM)  
yes because i have to do homework like a Normal College Student, young padawan

 **starman but like, COOLER** (Today at 11:37 PM) **  
** fck u i’m SEVENTEEN sdfgfdfghj

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 11:37 PM)  
and you’re not in college, what’s your point

 **starman but like, COOLER** (Today at 11:38 PM) **  
** ok FINE bye emmy ihu

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 11:38 PM)  
no you love me  
bye sirius tell alice i love her

 **starman but like, COOLER** (Today at 11:38 PM) **  
** tell her yourself you coward

All things considered, Remus thinks he’s fairly agile in social situations. He can carry a conversation decently well, and sometimes, he can even make people laugh. 

But he feels out of his depth immediately in this server, with its rapid chatter and easy, established dynamics. That’s not even to mention the kind of people who willingly join college admissions Discord servers. Wait, is he one of those people now? God, he hopes not. 

Before he can lose his nerve, he starts typing.

 **moony** (Today at 11:40 PM)  
hi  
does anyone know  
where i can get  
essay brainstorming advice  
like not  
an essay review  
just  
advice   
on where to start

 **starman but like, COOLER** (Today at 11:40 PM) **  
** why  
are you  
typing  
like that  
anyway hii new person join vc!!!! we’re friendly i swear

Remus does not want to join the voice chat. He very, very much does not want to.

He joins the voice chat.

He’s immediately bombarded with an onslaught of noise. Wincing at the feedback, he dials down the volume on his laptop. He hears what sounds like the tuning of a guitar and three or four people talking at once, all requesting different songs.

“Alice, you promised me you’d play ‘All Too Well’ first—”

“Shut up, Sirius, give the people what they want. ‘Wonderwall,’ ‘Wonderwall,’ ‘Wonderwall,’ come on—”

“I like ‘Sweet Caroline’ a lot—”

“DUN DUN DUN—”

“Shut _up,_ Sirius—”

“You don’t scare me, Amy, I’ve seen those pictures of you with your cats—”

“Sirius, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut up _right now—_ ”

Remus might not be good at utilizing his best judgement, as the events of tonight have shown, but he’s pretty good at knowing when he should get the hell out of somewhere. Besides, he should be asleep anyway. 

Quickly, he disconnects from the voice chat, closing his laptop for good measure. Tomorrow, he’ll leave the Discord server and never speak of this again. Maybe, if he’s really lucky, he’ll even forget about the crushing weight of college admissions for a day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the Cursed College Admissions Discord AU absolutely no one asked for
> 
> let me know if you enjoy it! i've got the whole fic more or less mapped out!
> 
> kudos + comments fuel me!


	2. august ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Remus is a big proponent of Internet safety and boarding schools are incredibly strange.

**r/whataremychances**

Posted by u/ziggystar 15 hours ago | 10 points

**chance an asian male in stem for caltech, harvey mudd, stanford, etc?**

**demographics:** half-asian, male, yale legacy, attend a top new england boarding school

 **intended major:** physics, meche? leaning towards the theoretical side currently, but i’m undecided

 **act/sat/sat iis:** 1580 sat (800 m, 780 r/w), n/a for act, 800s on math ii and physics

 **aps/coursework:** 5s on ap calc bc, physics i + ii, chem, micro + macro; school doesn’t formally offer aps, so i took these myself. highest possible rigor.

 **uw/w gpa and rank:** 3.85 uw; school doesn’t weight/rank

 **awards:** isef finalist (third award for physics and astronomy), best delegate at ymun and honorable mention at naimun, a bunch of state-level science awards that probably don’t matter that much

**extracurriculars:**

  * president of astronomy club (3 years)
  * vp of computing club (4 years)
  * guided research @ columbia (see awards for more details)
  * vp of model un (4 years)
  * staff writer + science editor for the school paper (2 years)
  * simons research program @ stony brook university (summer program)
  * violin (11 years), play in school orchestra 
  * independent tutor (3 years)



**essays/lors:** still working on my essays—will probably be a 7/10. recs will be good (physics and english teachers)

 **schools:** yale (probably applying restrictive early action), mit, caltech, harvey mudd, stanford, umich, cornell, uchicago, georgia tech, and northeastern 

appreciate the help!

* * *

Remus loves Saturdays. On Saturdays, he can forgo the usual expectations of being a Real Life Human Being and just exist for most of the day under the covers of his bed, somewhere in the liminal space between Functioning Entity and Lump Of Sentient Flesh-Colored Slime.

Which is why the repeated Discord notifications pinging on his phone, which he idiotically decided to place next to his head the night before, are not something he enjoys. They are very much something he does not enjoy, actually.

Finally, after yet another horrendously loud notification, he groans, picking up his phone. Through bleary, sleep-deprived eyes, he manages to make out the words on the screen.

He has at least ten Discord messages, all from someone with the username “padfoot.” Sighing, he unlocks his phone and opens the application.

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:09 AM)  
hi!  
you were the new person in aac last night  
sorry if we scared you off  
we are welcoming  
i promise!  
anyway you said that you like  
needed help with writing essays  
i can help maybe  
i’m also a rising senior but  
i’ve got a common app draft done and i’ve read essays in the past

 **moony** (Today at 8:15 AM)  
hi  
sorry did we  
talk last night

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:15 AM)  
wow i’m that forgettable huh  
smh 

**moony** (Today at 8:16 AM)  
it’s earlier than 9 am  
i can’t be expected to  
function yet

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:16 AM)  
i’m starman but like, cooler in aac

 **moony** (Today at 8:17 AM)  
oh  
the loud one

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:17 AM)  
wow  
is that all i am to you?  
is that all i can be defined by, my loudness?  
are all other facets of me forgotten?

 **moony** (Today at 8:18 AM)  
considering i don’t know you  
and the only impression  
i have of you  
is you being loud in vc  
yes  
yes you are

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:18 AM)  
that’s fair tbh  
anyway  
hi! i’m padfoot/starman/sirius  
sirius is my actual name btw

 **moony** (Today at 8:19 AM)  
did no one ever tell you  
about fucking  
stranger danger  
why did you just  
tell me your  
real name  
i could be  
a serial killer  
for all you know

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:20 AM)  
you’re part of a college admissions discord server  
forgive me if i don’t think you’re the next ted bundy  
also smh i only told you my first name  
what’re you gonna do  
search up “sirius strange discord boy college” on google??  
i think not

 **moony** (Today at 8:21 AM)  
wow i just searched up  
“sirius strange discord boy college”  
on google  
and i’ve found your full name  
address  
likes  
and dislikes

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:22 AM)  
well aren’t you a pleasant person

 **moony** (Today at 8:22 AM)  
i know i am :)

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:23 AM)  
anyway  
what is your name  
Most Pleasant Person On The Face Of The Earth

 **moony** (Today at 8:24 AM)  
moony :)

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:24 AM)  
smh i told you my name

 **moony** (Today at 8:25 AM)  
and unlike you  
i happen to care about  
internet privacy  
:)

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:25 AM)  
oh yes  
when the stranger danger apocalypse hits  
you’ll be the only one left untouched  
the only one who took the government’s warnings seriously  
the only one to survive, in a barren world  
where everyone else has been killed by The Strangers

 **moony** (Today at 8:26 AM)  
well aren’t you a pleasant person

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:26 AM)  
you can’t use my own line on me :(  
it’s not fair

 **moony** (Today at 8:27 AM)  
life’s not fair 

**padfoot** (Today at 8:27 AM)  
wow this got depressing fast  
anyway  
college stuff! you said you needed help

 **moony** (Today at 8:28 AM)  
i do  
starting with  
how the fuck  
do i write my common app essay

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:29 AM)  
you open up a google doc  
you title it “common app essay”  
you start typing  
you finish the essay  
you edit it down to 650 words  
and you paste it into the personal statement box  
on commonapp.org  
:)

 **moony** (Today at 8:30 AM)  
wow that was  
so very helpful  
thank you so much  
i know exactly  
what to do now

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:31 AM)  
i’m amazing, i know  
ok sorry i’ll actually help now  
i promise

 **moony** (Today at 8:32 AM)  
i’ll believe it when i see it  
also  
i’m going back to sleep  
it’s way too early for this  
why the fuck  
are you even up

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:33 AM)  
it is a bright and sunny day, moony  
the world in its entirety stretches in front of me  
a glimmering, glorious future  
why wouldn’t i be up?

Involuntarily, Remus snorts. Then, he remembers that Sirius, whoever he is, is really fucking annoying, and that he really, really wants to go back to sleep. He closes out of Discord, puts his phone on Do Not Disturb, and throws it to the other side of his room, where it lands on the carpet with a soft thump. Then, he burrows under his covers and does not think at all about college admissions or strange Discord boys.

When he wakes up again—this time at the extremely normal and socially acceptable hour of two o’clock in the afternoon—he consciously avoids picking up his phone, leaving it face-down on the carpet. Instead, he shuffles into the bathroom, where he brushes his teeth and gives up on doing anything with his hair. It’s not like anyone will see him today besides his parents, after all.

When he heads downstairs, he finds his mother in the kitchen, putting plastic containers of various unidentifiable foods in the refrigerator. 

“You’re up early,” she smiles at him, and Remus rolls his eyes.

“Is there any lunch left?” he asks, yawning.

“There’s chicken rice soup in the microwave and carrot tzimmes in the fridge,” she says. “There _was_ some garlic bread too, but your father ate all of it before you woke up.” At this, she pointedly looks at him, and Remus smiles sheepishly.

“I was tired?” he offers, and his mother sighs.

“Remember, when the summer’s over—”

“I know, I know,” he says. “When the summer’s over, I need to wake up early again. When I go to college, I’ll have to wake up early every morning, and no one will set an alarm clock for me. I’ll need to remember to go to bed at a ‘reasonable time’ by myself.” 

His mother rolls her eyes, but he can see that she’s smiling. “Now go eat your lunch before it gets cold—or colder.”

While he’s shoveling spoonfuls of chicken soup down his throat, his mother starts talking again. 

“You know, I was thinking about what Mr. Slughorn said yesterday again, that terrible man,” his mother starts. Remus does not look up. “Obviously, he was completely wrong about how you should approach the personal statement, but I do think he had some good points, especially about starting early.”

Remus hums and continues to eat. If he doesn’t say anything, maybe this conversation will end more quickly.

“Do you have any ideas for your essay yet, Remus? I think it would be wonderful if you wrote about your grandmother—she just adores you, you know, and I think it could be a very sweet story.”

Remus hums again.

“Or maybe you can write about volunteering! Remember that community garden you helped plant? I know admissions officers want to accept students who do good.”

This goes on for about ten minutes before Remus decides that, chicken soup or no chicken soup, he can’t take this anymore. “I already have an idea, mom.”

“Oh! What is it?”

“It’s a secret,” he says. “Er, I have a friend who’s helping me with it.”

“That’s just wonderful,” his mother says, smiling. “What’s their name?”

Because Remus has no brain cells, he doesn’t say Peter. “Sirius.” 

“I’ve never heard you mention him before,” she says, cocking an eyebrow.

“He’s, um, a friend of Peter’s. I’m full, Mom, I’m gonna go finish my essay, okay bye!”

He flops onto his bed the moment he reaches his bedroom and sighs. He might as well actually talk to Sirius and see if he’s willing to help.

 **moony** (Today at 3:03 PM)  
hi again

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:04 PM)  
i knew you’d be back! :D

 **moony** (Today at 3:04 PM)  
that’s just  
creepy

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:05 PM)  
D:  
anyway!  
did you have a good nap

 **moony** (Today at 3:05 PM)  
yes i did  
a wonderful one  
in fact

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:06 PM)  
good!  
do you still need help with your common app?

 **moony** (Today at 3:06 PM)  
i do  
i need a lot of help  
with my common app

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:07 PM)  
so what ideas do you have so far?

 **moony** (Today at 3:07 PM)  
honestly?  
i have none

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:08 PM)  
hmm  
what do you like to do?

 **moony** (Today at 3:08 PM)  
nothing i can  
write about  
video games i guess  
writing

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:08 PM)  
hm  
do you have any in-school extracurriculars?

 **moony** (Today at 3:08 PM)  
i’m homeschooled

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:09 PM)  
do you have any in-home extracurriculars?

 **moony** (Today at 3:10 PM)  
very funny  
no, i don’t do debate  
or scioly  
or model un  
or any of your other public school ecs

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:11 PM)  
i go to boarding school, actually

 **moony** (Today at 3:11 PM)  
oh wonderful  
are you one of those andover kids  
who goes around saying  
“jolly good, old chap!”

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:12 PM)  
i’m a boarding school kid  
i’m not british

 **moony** (Today at 3:12 PM)  
i was under the impression  
that boarding schools are all  
uniforms  
and repressed queer longing

**padfoot** (Today at 3:13 PM)  
what have you been reading, a separate peace?

 **moony** (Today at 3:14 PM)  
perhaps

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:14 PM)  
anyway i don’t go to andover  
so ha

 **moony** (Today at 3:15 PM)  
where do you go then

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:15 PM)  
weren’t you the one lecturing me about internet safety

 **moony** (Today at 3:16 PM)  
it didn’t seem like  
you cared very much  
about your safety  
so   
anyway back to my  
unwritten common app essay  
honestly   
i might just go with  
the thing that college counseling guy  
said to do

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:17 PM)  
what college counseling guy?

 **moony** (Today at 3:18 PM)  
yesterday  
my mom dragged me  
to another college talk  
the guy told me to write about  
being sick as a kid

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:18 PM)  
bro that’s so cliche though  
it’s like the generic I Overcame An Obstacle essay

 **moony** (Today at 3:19 PM)  
yeah  
i don’t want to write it  
but it’s not like  
i have any other options  
i’ve got to start somewhere  
honestly i don’t understand  
why every essay has to be about a struggle

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:20 PM)  
the Drama of it

 **moony** (Today at 3:21 PM)  
i guess  
what’s your essay about?

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:21 PM)  
still revising it  
but right now it’s about playing the violin

 **moony** (Today at 3:22 PM)  
oh  
that sounds interesting!  
how long have you been playing for?

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:22 PM)  
eleven years

 **moony** (Today at 3:23 PM)  
it must be a good essay then

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:24 PM)  
it’s a terrible essay, topic-wise  
probably the Worst Essay for a chinese kid to write  
besides the My Family’s Immigrant Story essay  
but the college counselor my mom hired says that it’s “subversive”  
no idea how  
though i guess it doesn’t matter in the end

 **moony** (Today at 3:25 PM)  
why not?

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:25 PM)  
three generations of yale legacy babey  
  
**moony** (Today at 3:27 PM)  
oh 

**padfoot** (Today at 3:27 PM)  
and a dad on the board of directors  
white privilege at its worst

 **moony** (Today at 3:28 PM)  
i thought you said you were chinese?

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:28 PM)  
half  
got a dad with an asian fetish!  
picked my mom up in beijing back in the 90s  
and somehow he managed to keep being a republican asshole  
very fun times

 **moony** (Today at 3:29 PM)  
i’m sorry

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:30 PM)  
he’s a jackass  
i’m over it  
but yeah  
nothing i write really matters in the end  
i could send in a fanfiction  
about captain america and the hulk fucking  
and i still doubt they’d reject me

 **moony** (Today at 3:31 PM)  
isn’t that a good thing?

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:31 PM)  
would be if i wanted to go to yale

 **moony** (Today at 3:32 PM)  
you don’t want to go  
to yale  
are we  
talking about the same yale here

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:33 PM)  
unless there’s another ivy in new haven  
yes we are  
and yeah i know it sounds super privileged and terrible

 **moony** (Today at 3:34 PM)  
you’re right  
it does

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:34 PM)  
thank you for the confirmation  
but it’s just that literally every person on my dad’s side of the family  
has gone to yale  
they’ve all been econ majors  
they’ve all gone into finance  
half went into politics  
and all of them are fucking assholes  
it feels like everything’s been predetermined for me  
and i hate it  
i don’t want to major in econ  
i don’t want to work for fucking goldman sachs

 **moony** (Today at 3:35 PM)  
i’m really sorry

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:35 PM)  
not like you have control over it  
don’t be sorry

 **moony** (Today at 3:36 PM)  
do you have to apply to yale?

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:37 PM)  
that’s like asking me if i need water to survive  
my parents are making me apply there early

 **moony** (Today at 3:37 PM)  
they can’t force you

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:38 PM)  
actually, they can  
i need someone to pay my college tuition  
unless i want to suffocate under a pile of student loans  
are you going to tell me to pull myself up by the bootstraps or something

 **moony** (Today at 3:39 PM)  
no  
i’m not  
but i’m sorry  
it’s not the same thing but  
if my mom could have her way  
i wouldn’t apply out of state at all  
the farthest she’d want me to go  
is georgetown

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:40 PM)  
do my eyes deceive me??  
has messr. moony, warrior for internet safety, revealed a clue to his true location?

 **moony** (Today at 3:40 PM)  
congratulations   
i’m either in maryland  
virginia   
or dc

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:41 PM)  
yes and before  
you could have been anywhere  
you could have been in any of the fifty nifty united states  
you could have been in china

 **moony** (Today at 3:42 PM)  
i couldn’t have  
discord’s banned in china

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:43 PM)  
:( you’re so intent on ruining my fun

 **moony** (Today at 3:44 PM)  
but!  
things are more fun  
when they’re accurate  
to real life :)

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:44 PM)  
that is an opinion

 **moony** (Today at 3:45 PM)  
an accurate opinion  
anyway  
if you could apply   
anywhere you wanted  
where would you go

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:45 PM)  
hmm  
well, let’s go with the college list i have so far first  
bar yale, of course  
caltech, mit, harvey mudd, stanford  
those are probably my top picks  
as you can see  
i’d like very much to be on the other side of the nation  
from my family  
what about you?  
what would you do with your one wild and precious life?

 **moony** (Today at 3:47 PM)  
die tragically and heroically  
in a blaze of glory  
jk  
i’d like to  
go to brown  
maybe pomona or amherst  
actually i do have this like  
really dumb fantasy  
i’ve always wanted  
to go to oxford  
or cambridge

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:49 PM)  
a real caroline calloway, huh

 **moony** (Today at 3:50 PM)  
who’s that?

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:50 PM)  
oh god sometimes i forget that there are people  
who can live their lives without knowing of  
the absolutely batshit insane saga of caroline calloway  
tl;dr: she’s an instagram influencer  
the longer version of the story is that  
she’s an american influencer who went to cambridge  
and got super famous off of her instagram posts about cambridge  
and her swedish boyfriend named oscar  
and she got a book deal about her life as an influencer at cambridge  
which she didn’t manage to actually write  
so she ended up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt  
then she went back to nyc and held these workshops  
where she charged people $165  
to listen to her talk about herself for five hours  
and then she got exposed by her college friend, natalie beach  
in an article in the cut  
for basically being a fraud and a shitty person and friend  
and now she’s basically an internet curiosity  
****

**moony** (Today at 3:55 PM)  
how do you know  
about all of this

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:56 PM)  
it’s a boarding school thing

 **moony** (Today at 3:56 PM)  
no seriously

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:57 PM)  
i’m always sirius :)

 **moony** (Today at 3:57 PM)  
see any impact  
that pun might have had  
is significantly dampened  
by the fact that we’re typing  
and not talking  
also how many times  
have you made that pun  
and how many times  
have you been yelled at  
for making it

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:58 PM)  
i’ll have you know that my puns are widely appreciated  
and i was being serious before  
caroline went to exeter  
after natalie’s article came out in the cut  
basically every new england boarding school newspaper  
featured an article about her  
even though she didn’t go to our schools

 **moony** (Today at 4:00 PM)  
wow  
boarding schools are  
even stranger than i thought they were

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:01 PM)  
smh you didn’t even know anything about boarding schools until today

 **moony** (Today at 4:01 PM)  
that’s false, actually  
i have another internet friend  
who goes to boarding school

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:02 PM)  
yet you said the only things you knew about boarding school  
were uniforms and repressed queer longing

 **moony** (Today at 4:03 PM)  
well yeah  
my friend and i don’t talk about her boarding school  
and like  
the mechanics and structure of it  
we talk about things that are  
actually interesting

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:05 PM)  
i’ll have you know that my boarding school is extremely interesting  
i make it interesting :)

 **moony** (Today at 4:06 PM)  
sure

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:07 PM)  
in any case, you’ve proven my point  
you didn’t even know anything about boarding schools until today  
until you met me!

 **moony** (Today at 4:08 PM)  
what did i do  
to be blessed with your presence

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:09 PM)  
maybe you were a hero in a past life  
who sacrificed yourself for your friends and family

 **moony** (Today at 4:10 PM)  
nah if i did that  
you’d be funnier

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:11 PM)  
i’ll have you know i am extremely funny  
i am the resident class clown at my school  
i am part of a duo of the most renowned pranksters of a generation!

 **moony** (Today at 4:12 PM)  
send proof

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:13 PM)  
i’m at home :(  
i can’t send proof of my amazing pranks when i’m at home

 **moony** (Today at 4:14 PM)  
until i see proof  
i will continue to believe that you are  
not in fact a prankster or a class clown  
but instead a person who thinks  
that making puns with their name  
is the absolute height of humor

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:16 PM)  
you are a cruel, cruel man, messr. moony  
oh fuck my brother’s calling for me  
apparently i have a violin lesson i forgot about  
talk to you later, my most mysterious, mooniest friend

In spite of himself, Remus smiles at the parting message. It’s probably a mark of how pathetic his life is, but this strange, unpredictable conversation with Sirius has been the highlight of his week. Then, being struck by something that’s either divine inspiration or the impetus to the biggest mistake of his life so far, he picks up his phone again.

 **moony** (Today at 4:19 PM)  
remus  
my name is remus

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:20 PM)  
:D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the saga of caroline calloway is incredibly compelling, and if you have time, i really do recommend that you read natalie's article in the cut. it's a wild ride.
> 
> kudos + comments fuel me! <3


	3. august iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus writes an essay, Sirius is Very Funny, Thank You Very Much, and Lily is a good friend.

hey sirius,

this is my first common app draft. please, please be harsh with it. tear it apart. also, i’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone else about my topic/etc—it’s pretty personal to me. - remus

**will do! - sirius**

**common app draft #1: through sickness and health**

The waiting room’s fluorescent lights are harsh and unforgiving. The faces of my mother and father are as unreadable as stone, my mother staring straight ahead, digging her fingernails into her palm. I swing my legs back and forth impatiently—we’ve spent the past weeks in and out of Inova Fairfax, and I’ve been poked and prodded at, had vials of blood drawn by smiling nurses with colorful Band-Aids, had cells taken from my bones and sent to laboratories, and all I want to do is go home.

I know I’m not well. I’ve spent the past few months losing weight even as I fill up my plate with food at dinnertime, and at night, I keep my parents up with my coughing. But I’ve always gotten sick easily—one of my earliest memories is of my mother at my bedside, pressing a cold compress onto my forehead as I burn up with a fever—so I see no reason to be worried. I see no reason for my father’s mouth to be set in a grim line, for my mother to close her eyelids tight and mutter the refuah shlema under her breath.

**your writing is good, but i think these two paragraphs take up too much space. you only have 650 words, and you’re using almost a third of them to basically say that you’re in a hospital and are sick with an unknown disease.**

“Mr. and Mrs. Lupin?” A nurse emerges from the door leading to the waiting room, holding a clipboard. “May I speak to you?”

**dialogue is always tricky in essays. i’m not sure if you should take this out or keep it in—so far, your essay is basically a narrative, so it might work, but at the same time, it always feels awkward to me when a conversation is shoved into the middle of an essay. also, i really doubt that you remember any of this as vividly as you’re describing it.**

My parents follow her into the next room over, and I’m left by myself in the waiting room. I flip through an old issue of Highlights, musing over the faded puzzles. These are the last few minutes before my life is irrevocably altered. In twenty minutes, my parents will leave the side room with their faces drawn and pale. In twenty minutes, I’ll learn the meaning of the words “acute lymphocytic leukemia.” In twenty minutes, I’ll be told that I’ll be returning to the hospital often to undergo chemotherapy.

**good parallelism here—could you make this more of the focal piece of your narrative? also, i’m unsure if the current third iteration of “in twenty minutes” is the strongest one—can you reword it?**

The next few years of my life were spent in and out of hospital beds, having various drugs injected into me. I was pulled out of the local middle school and enrolled in a virtual high school, my father believing that it would afford me more stability in my learning—never mind that I lost most of my friends in the process. While my former friends joined the track team and learned to play the flute, I learned about genetically inherited diseases and cell mutations. There were few constants during those three years.

**obviously, this is a negative part in the story, but it might be too negative—you don’t want to come off in a bad light to the admissions officers.**

Perhaps the only constants were boredom and anger. Boredom as I found myself with almost no entertainment bar the children’s cartoons playing constantly on the old televisions of the hospital, anger as I found myself overcome with helplessness. I couldn’t do anything to stop the sadness and fear on the faces of my parents. I couldn’t do anything to make my cells stop eating me from the inside out. I couldn’t do anything to make the treatments work. All I could do was wait and hope.

**maybe take out the boredom part + emphasize the helplessness. also, maybe don’t use the word anger.**

It was my mother, who had always loved words, that finally came up with the solution. “What if you could write those thoughts down?” She gave me a notebook bound with ribbon, and in it, I wrote my first poems—words running into each other as I grasped for a way to describe the changes in my life, for a way to describe the emotions that I could never voice out loud. Predictably, they weren’t very good poems, even for an eleven-year-old—but they were poems. There were verses and stanzas and half-sensical metaphors, and I spent those lonely days and nights in my hospital bed scribbling out my thoughts and dreams and everything that came to me under the moonlight. And I kept writing, even after the treatments finally came to an end. I wrote about my grandmother’s childhood in East Germany; I wrote about my father’s beloved dog named Snuffles, who he cried over when he had to be put down; I wrote about injustice and justice and fear and love. And even now, I keep writing—because I know that the written word is the way to the elusive pursuit of realization.

**this probably sounds bad, but this is honestly the only paragraph that i can feel true emotion in. finally, it doesn’t sound like you’re writing something you want the admissions officers to like—this is something you care about. what if you reworked the essay to focus more on this? do half-and-half, maybe—half getting sick, half writing + realizing that you loved to write. currently, it feels rushed (which is also probably because you’re over the word count, but we can fix that later), and i think it’s because the balance is off. thoughts on this and my other notes?**

**moony** (Today at 2:02 PM)  
so basically  
my essay is trash  
lmao ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:04 PM)  
it’s not trash!  
we just have to rework some parts of it  
that’s all ****

**moony** (Today at 2:05 PM)  
i love that  
you can tell  
how much i don’t  
want to write about this ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:06 PM)  
your writing in general is definitely good  
it’s easy to follow  
the problem with this essay is that  
you seem like a pretty passive figure in it  
up until the last few paragraphs  
until then, things are just happening to you  
which doesn’t tell me much about what you’re like as a person  
it’s only in the last paragraph that i learn why you love to write  
do you do that a lot for fun btw?

 **moony** (Today at 2:07 PM)  
yep  
i write a lot of poetry  
(bad poetry lmao)

 **padfoot** (Today 2:07 PM)  
hey i’m sure it’s not bad at all

 **moony** (Today at 2:07 PM)  
you haven’t read any of it ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:08 PM)  
i’d like to! ****

**moony** (Today at 2:08 PM)  
when i manage  
to finally write something decent  
i’ll send it to you ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:09 PM)  
:D

 **moony** (Today at 2:09 PM)  
also i’ve just realized  
that i know nothing about your interests  
besides the fact that you  
play violin  
and claim to be funny ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:10 PM)  
i Am funny, thank you very much

 **moony** (Today at 2:10 PM)  
again  
i’ve yet to see proof of that  
but anyway: what do you do for fun? ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:11 PM)  
as i’ve mentioned before  
i am one of the most renowned pranksters of our generation ****

**moony** (Today at 2:12 PM)  
is that even a thing?  
is there like a competition for that  
“best prankster in the world” ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:13 PM)  
if there was  
james and i would win it ****

**moony** (Today at 2:14 PM)  
james?

 **padfoot** (Today 2:15 PM)  
james!  
my brother from another mother  
my platonic soulmate  
the light of my life ****

**moony** (Today at 2:15 PM)  
again, james? ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:16 PM)  
my best friend  
we met on our first day at boarding school  
we were put into the same house ****

**moony** (Today at 2:17 PM)  
house?

 **padfoot** (Today 2:17 PM)  
up gryffindor! ****

**moony** (Today at 2:18 PM)  
somehow i’m just  
even more confused ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:19 PM)  
they’re less houses than neighborhoods tbh  
it’s a way of grouping us on campus  
we have four houses that all students are split into  
gryffindor, slytherin, ravenclaw, and hufflepuff  
and it’s like a community within a community  
technically we’re all randomly sorted into the houses by an algorithm  
but they all have stereotypes and slytherin is clearly the worst house

 **moony** (Today at 2:20 PM)  
i’ll take your word for it

 **padfoot** (Today 2:21 PM)  
it is The Worst  
slytherin has all the future frat bros of america and trump supporters  
while gryffindor is clearly the best  
we’ve got cookies  
anyway each house contains four different buildings  
that serve as dorms  
james and i were put into the same house (gryffindor)  
and then the same dorm too!  
and then miraculously we were roommates ****

**moony** (Today at 2:22 PM)  
oh my god they were roommates  
sorry  
i had to

 **padfoot** (Today 2:23 PM)  
no you’re valid  
anyway  
we were randomly roomed together back then but like  
we immediately realized that we’re basically twins who were separated at birth  
disregarding the fact that we look nothing alike of course  
and since then we’ve been requesting to room together every year  
it helps us plan pranks too  
since if either of us randomly comes up with an idea in the middle of the night  
we can just wake the other person up ****

**moony** (Today at 2:24 PM)  
why do i feel like  
neither you or james  
gets enough sleep ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:24 PM)  
because we don’t!  
it’s fine  
sleep is a social construct ****

**moony** (Today at 2:25 PM)  
it’s really not but okay

 **padfoot** (Today 2:25 PM)  
anyway james is literally a gift to this world  
a whole blessing of a man  
his only character flaw is his unrequited love for this girl at our school  
who basically hates his guts

 **moony** (Today at 2:26 PM)  
is this like  
one of those creepy obsessions  
where a guy makes a shrine to a girl  
and steals locks of her hair  
to arrange around a pile of bones ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:27 PM)  
remus what kind of media  
are you consuming ****

**moony** (Today at 2:28 PM)  
riverdale

 **padfoot** (Today 2:29 PM)  
oh  
that explains it  
and no it’s not like a creepy unrequited love or anything  
it’s just that once in a while  
usually late at night  
he gets really sad about her  
and starts asking me if he’s a fundamentally broken person who’s unworthy of love

 **moony** (Today at 2:30 PM)  
oh  
uh  
is he doing okay? ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:30 PM)  
mostly  
when he gets like that the only thing you can do  
is put on the Sad Boi Playlist  
and let him vibe to joji  
anyway i’m pretty sure he knows he’s not fundamentally unworthy of love  
there are like, ten girls who have a crush on him in our grade alone  
it’s just that there’s One Girl he cares about and she won’t give him the time of day  
which is a big oof ****

**moony** (Today at 2:32 PM)  
a big oof indeed ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:32 PM)  
disregarding that one flaw  
james is awesome  
one time we tp’d an entire dorm ****

**moony** (Today at 2:33 PM)  
that’s literally the stereotypical lame prank ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:33 PM)  
you didn’t let me finish the story yet!  
the tping of salazar hall was actually a diversion tactic  
for us to fill the entire first floor of the science building with ping pong balls  
resulting in the cancellation of all biology classes for two days  
to this day you can still find the occasional ping pong ball hanging out under a desk  
we were hailed as heroes

 **moony** (Today at 2:34 PM)  
not by the teachers

 **padfoot** (Today 2:35 PM)  
professor umbridge is a horrible person  
once she sent a girl to the headmaster’s  
because it was 80 degrees  
and the girl had the Audacity to not cover her shoulders  
she made one boy cry because he had severe anxiety  
and he didn’t want to present in front of the entire class  
he asked her if he could give the presentation to her alone after class  
(most teachers allowed him to do this by the way)  
and she told him that he needed to suck it up and just do it  
i felt No Guilt At All for filling her office with ping pong balls

 **moony** (Today at 2:37 PM)  
you know what  
you’re valid ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:38 PM)  
some of our other best pranks  
include the time we replaced the suits of armor in the admissions office  
with overwatch body pillows  
the time we put plastic spiders in all the vending machine items in salazar hall  
and the time we bubble-wrapped our bell tower ****

**moony** (Today at 2:39 PM)  
how many people at your school hate you guys

 **padfoot** (Today 2:40 PM)  
i’ll have you know that we’re adored by both the student body and the professors  
some slytherins might hate us  
and it’s true that umbridge doesn’t like us very much  
and the girl james likes would probably enjoy spitting on our dead bodies tbh  
but everyone else loves us!

 **moony** (Today at 2:41 PM)  
[x] doubt

 **padfoot** (Today 2:42 PM)  
:(  
oh fuck  
the tour guide saw me on my phone whoops ****

**moony** (Today at 2:42 PM)  
tour guide?

 **padfoot** (Today 2:47 PM)  
i might  
be on a tour of columbia’s campus right now ****

**moony** (Today at 2:48 PM)  
sirius  
go pay attention!  
this tour guide  
is an overworked college student  
who probably spent months  
memorizing their script

 **padfoot** (Today 2:49 PM)  
she gets paid no matter what  
and i’m not even applying to columbia  
i’m here because my brother wants to go here  
and my mom made me come with him on the tour  
no idea why he wants to spend even more time  
in the same city as our parents  
but it’s his life i guess ****

**moony** (Today at 2:50 PM)  
sirius  
once again  
do you have  
zero regard  
for your privacy ****

**padfoot** (Today 2:51 PM)  
new york city has more than 8 million people  
you’re not going to find me here :) ****

**moony** (Today at 2:52 PM)  
fair  
anyway  
you should still  
put away your phone  
and at least pretend  
to pay attention to the tour  
no matter what  
the tour guide deserves your respect

 **padfoot** (Today 2:53 PM)  
fineeee  
talk to you later!

Remus rolls his eyes, but he can’t stop a fond smile from spreading across his face as he closes out of Discord. Then, he sighs, looking at the Google Docs page in front of him. He’s really not looking forward to editing this essay, even though he knows he should—it’s already the last week of August, and every passing day is a reminder of how behind he is in this entire process. He can barely even stand to reread it, but at the same time, he doesn’t have the willpower or energy to scrap the essay completely and start all over. 

As though the universe knows what he’s thinking, he hears the familiar ping of a text message, and he rushes to unlock his phone. Honestly, even babysitting his neighbor’s five cats again would be better than this. 

**Lily (2:58 PM):** remus i’m bored

 **Lily (2:58 PM):** very very bored

 **Lily (2:58 PM):** can you call?

 **Remus (2:59 PM):** yep, just give me one second

Quickly, he brushes his hair and throws on a clean t-shirt, and then, flopping back onto his bed, presses accept on Lily’s Facetime call. Lily’s smiling face fills the screen, and he has to smile back.

“Oh Remus, my Remus!” Lily says dramatically, jazz hands sparkling across the screen.

“Oh Lily, my Lily,” he returns, trying his best to match her energy. He fails, of course, but then again, few people on Earth can even claim to be as exuberant as Lily.

He’d met Lily on, of all places, _Glee_ Tumblr. One of the only non-animated shows the hospital televisions consistently broadcasted was _Glee,_ and despite the show’s, well, everything, he managed to become fiercely addicted to it for about half a year. From there, he’d found his way to Tumblr, and he somehow found himself managing an Incorrect _Glee_ Quotes blog. Lily had become semi-famous around the same time for her photo manipulations of Kurt and Blaine in various classic Hollywood movie posters, and they’d gradually made their way from mutuals to acquaintances to Internet friends. 

There are some things you can’t go through without becoming friends, after all, and one of those things is obsessing over a television show that once replaced its entire cast with Muppets. 

But while Lily had deleted her Tumblr, she never really left _Glee—_ or rather, she never left musicals. She sang and danced her way from the ensemble up to Eponine in _Les Mis,_ every moment documented on her Instagram, all while single-handedly growing her school’s Robotics Team from five to fifty members, running a Girls Who Code chapter, and heading the Mock Trial Team. 

That was par for the course, though. Lily, with her long ruby hair and bright, piercing eyes, was the kind of person things happened to—happen to. Basically, if you didn’t hate her, you were a little bit in love with her.

“So what’ve you been up to?” Lily asks, propping her head up on her left hand.

“The usual,” Remus says. “Writing, college stuff, trying to get my parents off my back. You know how it goes. Oh, and I made a new friend.”

“Oh, did Peter introduce you to another one of his friends from band?” 

“Nope. Um, I might have met him on Discord?”

“As long as you’re not trying to replace me, I won’t say anything,” Lily says, smiling. 

“What about you?” Remus asks. “How’s life down in Florida?”

“It’s Florida. One of my neighbors found a boa constrictor in their car engine, there’s tourists fucking everywhere, and if we didn’t have an air conditioner, I think I’d have died from heat stroke three weeks ago,” Lily says, rolling her eyes. “I’ve mostly just been working on summer homework. Remus, I think Flitwick’s trying to kill us—I love his class, but _Great Expectations_ might be the single most boring book I’ve ever read. And I’ve been writing my college essays, same as you. AndImighthavebrokenupwithSev.” She says the last sentence all in one breath, as if she’s been holding it in for days.

“Say that last part again?”

“I might have broken up with Sev,” Lily says, slower this time, and then buries her face in her hands. 

Ah. Sev, or as Remus calls him internally, the bane of Lily’s existence. The first time he’d come up in a conversation, five years back, Lily had spoken of him fondly, calling him her best friend. Then, she’d gone to a swanky boarding school with him—Hogwarts Academy—and while they were still close friends, they started to drift apart. Near the end of her sophomore year, they’d had an explosive fight, and for five months, Lily didn’t mention Sev at all. And then, suddenly, during December of her junior year, she and Sev had started dating. 

“Is it mean to say that I’m kind of relieved?” he asks wryly. Lily peeks her head out from between her hands. The look on her face is unreadable, and for a second, he’s terrified that she’s going to cry. Instead, though, she starts laughing.

“No,” she says, smiling softly. “Oh, Remus, I hate this _._ I just keep thinking about his stupid face, and I don’t know if I want to yell at him or hug him.”

“Well, why did you break up?” Remus asks, then pauses. “Actually, why were you even _together?_ I know you two have basically been friends forever, but from what you’ve told me, Lily, he can be a fucking asshole.” 

Lily sighs again. “This is going to sound so, so stupid. Remus, promise you won’t judge me?”

“Lily, when I was a kid, I had a crush on one of the Penguins of Madagascar. I literally have no ability to judge you for anything. You can tell me.”

“Fine. I did it because I felt like I had to,” Lily says, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. “And before you say anything, Remus, yes, I’m aware that my body doesn’t belong to anyone besides myself, and that no one’s entitled to my love and affection and all of that. I’ve read Firestone.”

“But didn’t you say that all of your friends hated Sev?”

“That’s the thing,” Lily says. “They did—they do—and they all told me that he was petty and making friends with all the wrong people, and I knew that he’d had a crush on me forever, and somehow I got it into my head that I needed to be the one to save him or something.”

“So you decided to make yourself into a Wattpad heroine,” Remus says flatly. 

“You said you wouldn’t judge!”

Remus shrugs. “You didn’t say I couldn’t observe.”

“No commentary either,” Lily says, jabbing a finger at him. “I know it’s completely ridiculous. You don’t have to tell me that. I just—I don’t know. I think after we had that huge fight about his shitty friends and I stopped talking to him, I thought that if I finally dated him, maybe he’d stop hanging around Malfoy and Mulciber and feeding into their bigotry. And, you know, Sev’s not ugly or anything, and it’s not like we’re on opposite sides of a war or something, and I did love him, just—platonically, and I thought, well, Sev’s not the type of guy to make me do anything I don’t want to anyway, and I could put up with holding hands and kissing for a while, you know? And I thought it was working, and Malfoy was at Duke already, and he was always the most terrible of all of them—God, just thinking about the way he used to go around talking about how Trump had all the right ideas, and he just wished that he was more _refined—_ it makes me want to break something, Remus, honestly.” 

“I feel like there’s a ‘but’ somewhere in here.”

Lily crosses her arms over her chest. “What did I say?”

“Yes, yes, no commentary.” 

“It’s just—” Lily bites her bottom lip, as though she’s not quite sure what she wants to say. “Not enough changed. He kept hanging out with Mulciber and Avery, and he would just make these _comments,_ and I’d have to bite my tongue to not yell at him for them. And then a few weeks ago, we were getting lunch together at the diner, and we were talking about something on the news—something to do with that fucking immigration ban—and Sev said something like, _well, that’s not the best way to go about it, but I’m glad they’re finally doing something about those kinds of people,_ and I asked him what he meant, and he said _well, they_ are _taking our jobs, and in this economy, someone’s got to do_ something _about it._ And I looked at him and I said, _you do realize that my parents were part of_ those kinds of people, _don’t you, when they came from Cuba,_ and he stammered something out about how it was different back then, and how _I’m_ different, and I said, _actually, I don’t think I am._ And then I broke up with him.”

“And he just accepted it?” Remus cocks an eyebrow. From what he knows about Sev, he’s not the kind of person to take a slight like that lying down. 

“Well—” Lily bites her lip again. “At first he thought I was joking. And then I told him I wasn’t and that we were over, and he asked me if I ever even liked him at all and accused me of being in love with Potter.”

“Oh.”

“And he knows I’m not!” Lily says, tugging at her hair. “He knows that I think Potter is an immature, arrogant asshole who’s had everything handed to him in life. God, it made me so _angry,_ like I can’t make my own choices for myself. So I told him it had nothing to do with Potter at all, and that if he wants to start thinking for himself instead of blindly believing in that bullshit Mulciber spouts, we could be friends again, but until then, we wouldn’t be, and in any case, we were broken up. And then I took out twenty dollars, put it on the table, and walked out of the diner.”

“Lily, I’m so proud of you,” Remus says, slow-clapping dramatically. 

“Don’t be,” Lily laughs weakly. “I should have done it sooner. And—God, this makes me sound so terrible, but I still miss him, you know? Not the dating part, but just having him as a friend. He was the first person to not make fun of me for being that weird girl who read under the table during class. He was my first real friend ever, and I don’t think I could’ve gotten through my freshman year without him by my side. And now we’re not friends anymore, and I just wonder—what happened?”

“I don’t think it’s wrong to miss him,” Remus says. “You were friends for a long time. And sometimes people just drift apart, you know?”

“I wish we’d just drifted apart instead of _this,”_ Lily says bitterly. 

“I’m sorry, Lily,” he says. “On the bright side, you’re free to date anyone you want now?”

Lily rolls her eyes. “Sure, _that’s_ the bright side.”

“Stick it to Sev and _actually_ date Potter,” Remus suggests, only half-jokingly. Lily bursts out laughing, great guffaws that make her bend over. When she looks up again, there are tears of laughter in her eyes. 

“Good joke, Remus,” she says, wiping her eyes. 

“You did say he was hot,” Remus says, smiling.

“That was one time!” Lily protests. “I told you that in confidence. Remus, he has a _six-pack._ I’m only human.”

“Look, I’m not saying anything, just repeating it.”

“Look, even if he’s hot, I’d rather date Cthulhu than Potter,” Lily says distastefully. 

“Cthulhu?”

“He’s got that whole mysterious thing going on,” Lily replies. “Unknowable, all-powerful being and all of that.”

“Lily.”

“Seriously. I wouldn’t date Potter if we were the last two people on Earth,” Lily says, wrinkling her nose. “What makes it worse is how much everyone _else_ wants to date him. I’ve heard literally everyone in my dorm talk about how hot and charming and wonderful he is. The only person who hasn’t is Marley, and she’s with Black, who’s just as bad. God, the two of them are so _immature,_ and they walk around all tall and proud, like they expect us to worship them. Well, _I_ won’t.”

“Gee, Lily, it’s almost like you don’t even love them,” Remus says sarcastically. 

Lily lets out another sigh, but then she smiles. “The only good thing to come out of all of this is that Petunia’s talking to me again.”

Lily’s sister had begun the longest silent treatment campaign in the world the week before Lily went to Hogwarts, apparently seeing Lily’s insistence on going to high school ten states away from her hometown as a betrayal of their family. For the past two summers, Petunia had only broken her vow of silence to order Lily around and berate her for dyeing her hair bright red. 

“How’d that happen?”

“Well, Petunia always hated Sev,” Lily says. “Not because of anything he believes, of course, but because she thought I could do better.”

“She’s right. You could.”

 _“Anyway._ When she found out that we broke up, she made sure that I was the one who broke up with him, and then she took me shopping and offered to introduce me to one of her boyfriend’s friends.”

“Vernon? Really?” 

“Well, I’m not going to take her up on it, but it was a nice thing to do,” Lily says, shrugging. “It’s really nice. Last summer, when she wouldn’t talk to me at all, I was worried that it’d always be like this—that she’d go on ignoring me until I died or something. I’m just really happy that we’re talking again, you know?”

“I’m happy that you’re happy,” Remus says warmly. “Even if it had to take you breaking up with Sev for it to happen.”

“Yeah,” Lily says, her smile sadder now. 

“Who knows? Maybe this’ll be a wake-up call for Sev too,” Remus muses. “Maybe you’ll be the lost love of his past forever, and twenty years in the future, he’ll still look at photos of you and mourn his mistakes.”

“God, Remus, shut up,” Lily laughs. “You make my life sound like a fucking CW show.”

“I do enjoy _Supergirl,”_ Remus admits. 

“That’s the problem then,” Lily says. “You have absolutely no taste—”

“Lily! If you don’t come downstairs in the next _minute,_ I’m leaving without you!”

“That’s Petunia,” Lily stage-whispers. “She’s been dragging me to her yoga classes for the past week—for some reason, she thinks I’m going to meet the love of my life at the gym.” She rolls her eyes. “Granted, the instructor _is_ kind of cute, but she’s like, five years older than me, so that’s a no-go too.”

“You’re voluntarily going to the gym?” Remus asks. “Weren’t you the person who once faked a broken leg to get out of dodgeball in gym class?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s dodgeball,” Lily dismisses. “The risk of getting hit in the face with a ball is significantly lower in a yoga class.”

“Fair.”

“Lily, I’m going to count down from ten! Ten, nine, eight…”

“Okay, I should go. Call you later?”

“I’ll be here,” Remus smiles. The call ends, and for a moment, he stares into space and sighs. It’s probably a mark of just how boring his life is, but he kind of wishes that he could be part of a dramatic love story too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone in florida actually did find a boa constrictor in their car engine, according to esquire: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a26899191/florida-man-headlines-2019/. 
> 
> kudos + comments fuel me! <3


	4. september i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus hates calculus, and Lily continues to be a good friend.

**Admissions Advice Corner** **  
****#announcements | Server upkeep + general information!**

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23] (Today at 9:10 AM)** **  
** @everyone now that it’s (officially) fall and some rolling admissions schools have started releasing decisions, we’d like to remind everyone to post their results in #admissions-decisions! we’re here to support you no matter what happens—feel free to talk about admissions and non-admissions feelings in #venting, or just chill with us in #general or voice chat! 

also, we’re looking for new moderators! please dm me if you’re interested, and i’ll send you the application form to fill out. alternatively, type “make me mod” one hundred times in #general and we’ll also consider your application. just kidding. don’t do that, or i’ll ban you. 

good luck with admissions, everyone! 

**Admissions Advice Corner** **  
****#general | Please remember to visit #rules if you’re new and role yourself appropriately!**

 **starman but like, COOLER** (Today at 9:20 AM) **  
** @sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23] wow you’re such a good mod

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 9:20 AM) **  
**i know i am  
i have to deal with you every single day

 **starman but like, COOLER** (Today at 9:21 AM) **  
**D: you know you love me, emmy  
xoxo

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 9:22 AM) **  
**living in nyc doesn’t make you gossip girl, sirius

 **starman but like, COOLER** (Today at 9:22 AM)  
what did i do to make you hate me :( :( :(  
i love you emmy :(

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 9:23 AM)  
everyone does  
also sirius aren’t you in class?

 **starman but like, COOLER** (Today at 9:24 AM)  
aren’t YOU in class?

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 9:24 AM)  
my first class is at 2 pm  
so no, i’m not

 **moony** (Today at 9:25 AM)  
@starman but like, COOLER go to class sirius

 **starman but like, COOLER** (Today at 9:25 AM)  
i AM in class, messr moony  
are you??

 **moony** (Today at 9:26 AM)  
going to class for me  
is literally  
turning on my laptop  
so yes i am  
also sirius  
if you’re in class  
get off your phone

 **starman but like, COOLER** (Today at 9:27 AM)  
i can be on my phone and listen at the same time jkl;’cvgrtghu;lkytresdghjk’;lkjui098765

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 9:28 AM)  
i’ve never seen a keysmash that chaotic before

“Remus?” He hears his mother rap on his door, and he turns away from his laptop. “Can you come downstairs for a moment, sweetheart? Your father and I want to talk to you about something important.”

“One minute!” he calls. He has a feeling that it’ll be _another_ talk about college—it’s all his mother seems interested in discussing lately. Sighing and shutting his laptop, he wonders what it’ll take for her to finally drop the topic. 

In the living room, he finds his parents, sitting side by side on the couch. His mother is beaming, while his father just looks intensely uncomfortable. 

“Remus, we just wanted to congratulate you on finishing the first draft of your personal statement!” 

“Thank you?”

“So in honor of that, we decided to buy you this,” his mother says, still beaming and holding out a thin book entitled _50 Ivy League Application Essays that Worked._ “I thought that we could go through them together and see what makes them tick!”

“Oh.” Truthfully, reading fifty Common App essays in a row sounds like absolute hell, but he forces a smile to his face. “Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.”

“Additionally, your mother and I would like to know if you’ve decided on a school to apply early to yet,” his father says, looking down at Remus through his thick-paned glasses. “You’ve got less than a month to send out that application, you know.”

“I know.” Somehow, everything his father says manages to sound like a lecture.

Remus knows that his father loves him. When he was younger, his father would sit up with Remus all night when he had nightmares, reading his worn copy of _Coraline_ over and over again. (Yeah, Remus was a weird kid. Sue him.) His father bought Remus his first iPhone when he was twelve because every twelve-year-old on television had their own phone, even though both of them knew that Remus had no one to call. 

But sometimes, he feels as though—well, he feels like his father had always expected a different child. 

When Remus was ten, right before he got sick, his father had brought him to a holiday party hosted by his supervisor at George Mason, where he taught mathematics. Remus had been the only person under the age of thirty in attendance, and he’d wandered around the rented hotel ballroom aimlessly, stealing sprinkled cookies off of plates and wondering if he could get away with taking a short nap in the hotel lobby. 

Somehow, he’d come across a man who professed to be another professor at George Mason, one of statistical methods, and when he’d learned just who Remus’s father was, the man had smiled broadly. “Oh, so you’re Lyall’s son! You must be so proud of your father—he’s a veritable genius, I tell you.”

It was the first time he’d ever heard of his father referred to as a genius. Over the course of his one-sided conversation with the man, which unfortunately dragged on for nearly a half hour, Remus learned that his father had published multiple widely renowned papers on probability theory and, after graduating from MIT, could have pursued any number of career paths, including staying on at MIT as a researcher, but had chosen instead to settle down back in his hometown with his wife and son, and wasn’t that so wonderful of him? Remus had simply nodded along, bewildered at the man’s increasingly confusing explanations of just what probability theory entailed. 

He hadn’t given thought to that conversation again until he was thirteen. He was on his third round of chemotherapy, and he’d spent his days largely in and out of sleep, trying to block out the hushed whispers by his bedside. One night, though, he’d been thoroughly woken up by his parents, whose whispering had escalated to hushed shouting. It was the first time he had heard them argue—really argue, not just bicker affectionately about which piece of furniture they should buy at IKEA or where they should go for dinner. 

“Under no conditions are you taking our son out of the hospital for an _examination,”_ his mother had hissed. “Our son’s health is far more important than anything else.”

“It’s his only chance,” his father had pleaded. “Hope, we moved back to Fairfax for a reason. We don’t pay thousands of dollars in property taxes a year for him to _not_ go to Thomas Jefferson. It’s the best school in the _nation.”_

“And your son is ill, Lyall.”

“It’s only for one day! It will be quick. He’s smart enough—the exam won’t test him on anything beyond basic algebra. Even he can handle that.”

“And what is _that_ supposed to mean, Lyall?” Here, his mother’s voice had turned deadly. 

“Nothing. Nothing. Hope, it’s probably his only chance. They barely take any transfers after freshman year. Look, I filled out the online application already—”

“You _what?”_

“It was all just basic information, Hope, don’t worry. I sent in a description of his mathematics curriculum and everything.” Here, his voice had become softer. “Hope, I just want the best for our son.”

“And do you think I don’t? The important thing right now is his _health,_ Lyall, not getting into Thomas Jefferson. Any additional stress would be terrible for him right now. He’s barely even moved from his bed for a week.”

“Hope, please.”

“No, Lyall. I won’t let you do it.” After that, the voices of his parents had faded, and Remus had finally fallen asleep. A week later, when Remus was finally more awake in the day than not, his father had presented him with a $40 Steam gift card and told him to buy anything he wanted. He supposed that was his father’s way of apologizing, though he doesn’t know, even now, if his father knew that Remus had been awake to hear the argument. 

But Remus had never gone to Thomas Jefferson in the end—never taken the entrance exams—and he wonders sometimes if his father still regrets not making him do so. He’d never returned to public school, even after he’d been cleared to do so by his doctors, and sometimes, he has the fleeting thought that it’s his father’s way of waging his own revenge against the universe— _if my son can’t go to Thomas Jefferson, he can’t go to any public school at all—_ though he knows that’s ridiculous.

What’s less ridiculous is that Remus is always vaguely aware that he’s somewhat of a disappointment to his father—not enough for his father to ever say it out loud, of course, but one nonetheless. He’s the son of a _mathematics_ professor, and he can’t even wrap his head around basic integration.

“Any other thoughts on that, Remus?” his father asks, and Remus realizes that they’ve all been sitting in silence for an uncomfortably long period of time.

“Um, I’ve been thinking of applying early to Brown?” It comes out as more of a question than a statement. “They’ve got a good English department, and I like the student culture, I think.”

“Not Harvard?” His father lifts an eyebrow, and Remus gulps.

“No. Actually, I don’t think I’ll be applying to Harvard at all,” Remus admits, determinedly avoiding his father’s piercing gaze. “I don’t really like the atmosphere.”

“How can you know that? You’ve never even visited Harvard.”

“It’s just from research. I’ve talked to some current students, and I don’t think the environment is for me.” This is a blatant lie, but he doesn’t think his father will push it. “I’d rather focus on my other applications instead.” Also, he has no chance in hell at Harvard. 

His father hums, which Remus sees as a sign of agreement, though he doesn’t look very happy about it.

“I’m so glad that you’ve decided on Brown!” his mother gushes effusively, as if to make up for his father’s lack of a reaction. “Oh, Remus, you’ll love it there. Did I ever tell you Deidre—you know, Deidre from my book club—has a daughter who went to Brown? She studied history there, and she _loved_ it. If you want, I can ask Deidre if her daughter has time to talk to you, and she can give you some tips on your application!”

“Thanks, Mom. That would be great.” Remus smiles weakly. “I still have some classwork left, so…”

“Oh, don’t let us keep you from it,” his mother says, shooing him away. “Go, go!”

Remus walks—well, more like runs—upstairs, breathing a sigh of relief when he’s finally back in his bedroom. He opens up his laptop, and a small smile spreads across his face when he sees the five missed messages from Sirius.

 **padfoot** (Today at 9:50 AM)  
remus!! i am in need of advice  
desperate advice, actually  
this is a critical matter that must be dealt with immediately  
and thus i have come  
to seek out your assistance, my moony remus

 **moony** (Today at 10:12 AM)  
one or the other is fine lol  
also  
why are you speaking like  
a victorian gentleman

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:14 AM)  
because it’s fun!  
anyway, moonbeam

 **moony** (Today at 10:14 AM)  
moonbeam??

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:15 AM)  
moonbeam.  
we have a problem

 **moony** (Today at 10:16 AM)  
what’s the problem?

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:16 AM)  
i’ve got detention tonight for texting during class :(

 **moony** (Today at 10:16 AM)  
hard oof  
well  
it’s just one night

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:17 AM)  
oh that’s not the problem  
i’ve been in detention probably like  
a hundred times

 **moony** (Today at 10:18 AM)  
are you secretly  
a delinquent  
or something

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:18 AM)  
i’ll have you know i have impeccable manners and am extremely well-behaved

 **moony** (Today at 10:19 AM)  
sure

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:19 AM)  
i am!  
anyway the problem isn’t that i’ve got detention  
the problem is that i’ve got detention TONIGHT  
you see tonight james and i were going to sneak into salazar hall  
which is the upperclassman slytherin dorm  
and steal someone’s phone

 **moony** (Today at 10:20 AM)  
you know  
you really aren’t doing a good job  
of convincing me  
that you’re not a delinquent 

**padfoot** (Today at 10:20 AM)  
i solemnly swear that i am not a delinquent  
i’m president of the astronomy club  
what delinquents are part of the astronomy club

 **moony** (Today at 10:21 AM)  
rich ones who go to boarding school

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:21 AM)  
fair  
but we aren’t just stealing a phone for shits and giggles  
we have a Plan For Vengeance 

**moony** (Today at 10:22 AM)  
and why  
do you need  
a plan for vengeance?

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:22 AM)  
so there’s this total asshole, evan  
i call him ev because funnily enough we were childhood friends in the way that when you’re a kid your parents will force you to become friends with the kids of their friends  
and back then he went by ev  
so now i call him ev to piss him off lmao

 **moony** (Today at 10:23 AM)  
as you do  
how’s he an asshole

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:23 AM)  
well first off he’s a slytherin  
which increases the likelihood of you being an asshole by a good 75%  
secondly he’s your generic republican asshole  
trump supporter who wears a fucking maga hat, thinks vineyard vines is the pinnacle of fashion, and is generally shitty as an individual  
but the issue at hand Today is what he did to my friend marlene  
so marlene’s a great gal. funny, pretty, smart, and all that  
and last year evan had a crush on her, i guess  
he asked her out last winter  
and account of him being an asshole and other things she turned him down  
mind you she didn’t even do it rudely  
she just said that she didn’t like him in that way

 **moony** (Today at 10:27 AM)  
oof did he go all nice guy on her

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:27 AM)  
worse  
to get back at her for having the Audacity to make decisions for herself  
he decided to spread a rumor that not only had marlene said yes to him  
she had also slept with him and sent him nudes  
and he got his friends to photoshop pictures of her face onto actual nude photos  
and spread them around school

 **moony** (Today at 10:28 AM)  
what the fuck

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:28 AM)  
#justboardingschoolthings  
actually  
#justshittydouchebagthings  
but yeah marlene’s one of my best friends  
right after james in the Best Friend Rankings  
so we were going to get revenge by stealing his phone and posting on every social media platform what an asshole he is  
“My name is Evan, and I’m a fucking asshole. Because I can’t handle rejection, I decided to sexually harass and violate the girl I liked by spreading false rumors about her and photoshopping her picture onto explicit images. I’ve also cheated on all three of my past girlfriends because I have no capacity for respect. I often make racist remarks in class that go ignored because my father is a donor to this school and I know that I can get away with anything because of my privilege. I am a proud Trump supporter, virulent homophobe, and all-around terrible person. You definitely shouldn’t tell all of your friends about me, and you definitely shouldn’t report me to the Penn Admissions Office, since I’ve bragged all my life about how I’m going to go to Wharton.”  
this is the going message we have right now for that

 **moony** (Today at 10:34 AM)  
succinct and clear  
wait how are you  
getting into his phone?

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:34 AM)  
oh both james and evan play lacrosse

 **moony** (Today at 10:35 AM)  
of course they do

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:35 AM)  
everyone on the lax team is an asshole besides james  
anyway yeah because of that james has seen evan unlock his phone hundreds of times at practice and stuff  
and at this point he’s committed the password to memory

 **moony** (Today at 10:37 AM)  
nice nice  
why does this  
have to be tonight though

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:37 AM)  
evan’s also on the hockey team  
tonight they have their first game which will last at least three hours  
he’s not going to bring his phone along because the coach is really superstitious about having tech at games, for some reason  
and all of his shitty friends will also be there  
except snivelly  
but snivelly will probably be in the library anyway 

**moony** (Today at 10:38 AM)  
you have a kid at your school  
named snivelly?

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:38 AM)  
no lmao  
james and i call him that because he’s a dick

 **moony** (Today at 10:39 AM)  
seems kind of rude

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:39 AM)  
rest assured he deserves it  
anyway it has to be tonight because the next hockey game is a month away  
and james and i can’t wait that long

 **moony** (Today at 10:40 AM)  
so it has to be tonight  
because you have no patience

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:40 AM)  
no but yes  
so i need a way to get out of detention

 **moony** (Today at 10:41 AM)  
how much does  
the teacher who gave you detention  
like you

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:41 AM)  
ehhhhh  
he likes james more  
he’d probably let it slide if i had an excuse  
and made up the detention later  
and that’s where you come in!

 **moony** (Today at 10:42 AM)  
i’m here to  
help you lie  
to a teacher?

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:42 AM)  
temporarily mislead a teacher for the greater good of society

 **moony** (Today at 10:42 AM)  
you’re not actually  
a utilitarian  
right

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:43 AM)  
of course not  
but “the greater good” sounds dramatic  
also this teacher isn’t even your teacher  
so technically you’re just helping me mislead a random adult

 **moony** (Today at 10:44 AM)  
fine  
is this  
part of your dastardly plan  
to turn me into a delinquent like you

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:45 AM)  
no :)

 **moony** (Today at 10:45 AM)  
i think you’re lying  
but i’m too tired to argue

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:46 AM)  
:)

 **moony** (Today at 10:47 AM)  
so what excuses  
have you thought up so far

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:47 AM)  
i have a lot but i’ve used most of them before on other teachers already unfortunately  
there’s the old “i have a club meeting at the same time”  
unfortunately i don’t have any clubs that meet tonight  
there’s the “it’s my birthday,” which only works on my actual birthday  
there’s the “i have an urgent project due tomorrow” but it’s too early in the school year for any urgent projects

 **moony** (Today at 10:48 AM)  
hmmmm  
do you have any relatives  
who could plausibly have  
a birthday celebration tonight  
that you would be required to attend in person  
for various inexplicable reasons

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:48 AM)  
remus you’re a fucking genius  
i doubt anyone knows my uncle alphard’s birthday  
and he’s one of the few relatives i can stand  
and he lives in boston, which is technically close enough for me to visit

 **moony** (Today at 10:49 AM)  
i aim to please  
let me know how the prank goes

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:50 AM)  
of course i will, my mooniest friend

The conversation with Sirius leaves him on a brief serotonin high for a few hours. Unfortunately, that spell is broken abruptly when his Calculus homework for the night is assigned and he finds himself completely lost on the first problem. Not for the first time, he wishes that he’d ignored his mother’s advice and just taken Calc AB instead of BC. Screw course rigor—at least then he’d be able to follow the lectures. 

He sighs. Most likely, he’s going to need to get help from his father. Again. 

Logically, Remus knows that his father is a good teacher, given that he’s the head of his entire department and has more than a hundred raving five-star reviews on RateMyProfessors. Somehow, though, when it comes to explaining anything math-related to his own son, his father falls short.

“Now, we can see here that both of these functions are continuous and non-negative on the indicated interval, so we can isolate the region contained by the curves of these functions on this interval and rotate it around the x-axis to form a solid,” his father says. Remus tries his best to not appear totally lost. “Then, you just plug the numbers into the formula here.” His father points to a complicated-looking integral, and Remus squints, wondering if he needs glasses or if he’s just an idiot. 

“So then I square the whole thing?” 

“No,” his father sighs, rubbing at his temples. “All you have to do is use the formula. Don’t do anything else.”

“Right,” Remus says slowly. “Uh, Dad, is there like a trick for this or something?”

“Well, it could help to draw it out,” his father replies. “Visualize the solid formed by the two functions.” 

“Visualization,” Remus repeats. Maybe if he says it enough times, it’ll make sense. 

“Try the first problem for yourself,” his father says. “It’s just a plug-and-chug.”

And surprisingly, his father’s right. Does Remus understand what he’s doing? No. Can he visualize the solid that’s apparently being formed? Fuck no. But can he plug numbers into his calculator and then scribble down a solution? Heck yeah.

“Nice job,” his father says, after checking his answer twice. “Can you do the rest alone?”

He honestly doesn’t think there’s an answer besides yes, so he nods, and his father gives Remus one of his rare smiles. 

Remus works his way through the next two problems steadily, helped along by the fact that not much actual thinking is required. On the fourth problem, though, he runs into a wall. 

For twenty minutes, he plugs numbers into his calculator, searches up solutions, and writes down calculations. For twenty minutes, he gets increasingly incorrect answers. 

He could ask his father for help again. He should ask his father for help again. Except—

If he asks his father for help again, Remus knows exactly what will happen. His father will sigh, look at Remus like he’s incapable of intelligent thought, and then proceed to point out everywhere Remus went wrong and solve the problem himself in less than a minute. And honestly? It’s been a long day, and Remus really isn’t in the mood for that. 

There’s one other option: bug every single one of his friends for help. 

**Remus (5:02 PM):** peter you’re in calc right

 **Peter (5:04 PM):** Yeah

 **Peter (5:04 PM):** What’s up?

 **Remus (5:05 PM):** i need help with finding the volume of rotations

 **Peter (5:05 PM):** Oof

 **Peter (5:06 PM):** I wish I could help, but I can’t :/

 **Peter (5:06 PM):** We’re still doing linear acceleration

That sucks, but it’s not the end of the world. He’s sure Lily will know what’s going on.

 **Remus (5:10 PM):** lily do you know anything about finding the volume of rotations

 **Remus (5:25 PM):** ?

 **Remus (5:38 PM):** lily? are you there

So that’s a no-go too, then. One person left, and it’s probably pretty sad that Remus has three people on the face of the planet that he can call his friends, and he met one of them literally a month ago.

 **moony** (Today at 5:45 PM)  
sirius  
would you happen to  
know calculus

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:46 PM)  
i do know calculus!!  
i’m taking multi this year, actually  
i am a friend of numbers

 **moony** (Today at 5:47 PM)  
can’t relate  
i’m terrible at math lmao  
how much  
do you know  
about finding the volumes  
of rotated solids

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:48 PM)  
i mean i know the formula  
and i think i remember how to do those types of problems

 **moony** (Today at 5:49 PM)  
right  
so the problem  
i can’t figure out right now  
is  
“Consider the function y = x^2. It is bounded by the line x = 8. Find the volume of the solid contained within this region, with the cross sections of the solid being equilateral triangles with a height of y.”  
honestly i have  
no idea how to even start  
for the last three problems  
i just pressed buttons  
on my calculator  
lmao 

**padfoot** (Today at 5:50 PM)  
ok! so we’ve got the formula  
which can be simplified to be volume = definite integral(area)dy or dx  
so the first thing we do is define the bounds  
where does the integral start and end

 **moony** (Today at 5:51 PM)  
uhhhh  
it starts at 0 right  
and ends at 8?

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:52 PM)  
right!  
do we use dy or dx for this integral?

 **moony** (Today at 5:54 PM)  
um  
dx?

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:55 PM)  
yeah!  
you’re not bad at math at all

 **moony** (Today at 5:55 PM)  
ehhhhh  
my dad would  
probably disagree with that  
anyway um  
how do i find the area?  
is it A = sqrt(¾)(side)^2  
like for equilateral triangles?

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:58 PM)  
almost  
it gave you the height  
height = y remember  
and y = x^2  
so it’s actually height^2/sqrt3

 **moony** (Today at 5:59 PM)  
ohhh  
so that’s what i  
was doing wrong  
so the answer is  
the definite integral  
from 0 to 8  
of (x^2)^2/sqrt3 dx

 **padfoot** (Today at 6:02 PM)  
yeah!!  
see you got it!  
you aren’t bad at math  
:D

For some reason, he feels a smile stretch across his own face too. His cheeks are warm, and—

Oh. _Oh._

It’s not like Remus has no experiences with embarrassing, unattainable crushes. Kowalski, Lindsay Lohan, Zuko, and Shego are all proof of that. A crush—and fuck, okay, he can’t even call it a crush without wanting to scream—an _infatuation_ with a boy on the Internet that he’s never even seen, though? That probably takes the cake. 

**Remus (6:08 PM):** LILY EMERGENCY

 **Lily (6:09 PM):** is that math problem that bad?? lmao

 **Remus (6:10 PM):** NO I HAVE

 **Remus (6:10 PM):** A DIFFERENT PROBLEM NOW

 **Remus (6:10 PM):** CAN YOU CALL

 **Lily (6:11 PM):** lmao yeah sure

 **Lily (6:11 PM):** i need to vent about fucking potter anyway

 **Remus (6:12 PM):** ;)

 **Lily (6:12 PM):** oh fuck you lupin 

“Sorry for not replying earlier, by the way,” Lily says when she picks up his Facetime call. “Did you know that the headmaster can single-handedly appoint senior prefects? Who the fuck made _that_ rule?”

“I don’t know, probably the headmaster,” Remus deadpans, and Lily rolls her eyes. 

“I had to find out at the fucking prefect meeting that Dumbledore’s gone off his fucking rocker and made _Potter_ a senior prefect,” Lily fumes. “Apparently McLaggen decided that he’s going to be too busy with college apps to keep doing it. It’s a bullshit excuse, since literally _all_ of us have college apps, but perfect Tiberius McLaggen is an exception, right?”

“To be honest, Lily, I still don’t really understand why your school even has prefects,” Remus says. “Again, you aren’t British.”

“And I’ve told you a thousand times, it’s to help the freshmen adjust,” Lily replies. “We’re basically glorified babysitters. And! That’s another reason why Potter being a prefect is absolutely insane. He’s an only child! How’s he supposed to control the freshmen if he doesn’t even have a sibling?”

Remus shrugs. If he was more keen on being on the receiving end of a Lily Lecture, he’d say something about how Lily’s the younger sibling anyway, so it’s not like she can say anything here, but he _does_ need her help today.

“And it’s unfair too! All the other prefects had to apply, and Potter just gets to waltz in and take it for himself? And now I have to see him every single night, as if seeing him in English and Multi wasn’t bad enough already,” Lily huffs. Then, she deflates. “I’m sorry for springing all of this on you, Remus. You said you had an emergency?”

“Yeah,” Remus says. How’s he even supposed to word this? _Hey, Lily, remember the Discord friend I made? I had him help me with my calculus homework, and for some reason, I liked seeing him talk about definite integrals so much that I think I have a small thing for him now, even though I don’t even know what he looks like._

“What?” Lily gawks at him, her eyebrows raised, and belatedly, Remus realizes that there’s a non-zero chance he’s just said all of that out loud. “Remus, oh my God.”

“I’m just going to go die in a hole,” Remus decides. “Tell my parents I love them, and make the cake at the funeral chocolate, will you?”

“Wait, no, come back,” Lily laughs. “I just—” She bursts into a fit of giggles. “Remus, you’re a sapiosexual, what the fuck.”

“I’m a what?”

“Just search it up. Oh my God, when you watch _The Big Bang Theory,_ do you get all hot for Sheldon Cooper?” That sets Lily off into giggles again, and Remus sighs.

“Well, first off, I don’t watch _The Big Bang Theory_ because it’s misogynistic trash. And it’s not like I _wanted_ this to happen,” he groans, letting his head drop down onto his desk. “God, I hate my life. I don’t even know his last name, and it’s not like I’m ever going to meet him.”

Now, Lily just looks sympathetic. “Well, you never know,” she says. “All good relationships need a start, right?”

“Sure,” Remus says glumly. “I’m definitely going to end up falling in love with a guy who unironically goes by ‘Padfoot’ as a nickname.”

“Why do I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere?” Lily frowns, before shaking her head. “Anyway. Don’t be so down about it, Remus. Besides, in a year, you’ll be at college anyway, and there will be tons of hot, smart people there, you know?”

“I guess,” Remus sighs. “Tell me more about how terrible Potter is? I need to just forget about all of this.”

“Gladly,” Lily says, smiling, and goes off into another rant about how terrible Potter’s taste in music is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos + comments fuel me! <3


	5. september ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus and Sirius talk about music, Remus goes to Costco, and Sirius reveals a secret.

my common app—thanks for reading, remus! - sirius :D

**no problem. just returning the favor - remus**

**Common App Essay**

I am a terrible pianist.

My mother put me in piano lessons at the age of six. She said it would teach me discipline. Really, it taught me what it felt like to dig my teeth into the varnish of the piano wood when I couldn’t practice for even a second more. 

**is this....supposed to be this dark?**

In any case, after less than a year, we came to the mutual conclusion that piano wasn’t for me. Of course, I couldn’t give up music, so she told me to choose a new instrument. For better or for worse, I chose the violin.

**you sound kind of negative here.**

At first, I hated it, ~~just like I hated the piano.~~ **← unnecessary and breaks the flow.** I hated the way my fingers calloused over from the hard strings. I hated the way my teacher yelled at me after I butchered a scale. I hated how no matter how much I practiced, everything was always slightly out of tune. 

**see above.**

And then Regulus was born.

My brother was always quiet. That was normal for the first few years of his life, but once he was six and still refused to speak in more than a barely audible whisper, my parents decided to take him to a child psychologist. 

The results were conclusive: there was nothing wrong with him, at least nothing that could be diagnosed or treated. He was just painfully, terribly shy. The psychologist recommended that he see a therapist, someone who could talk to him and maybe, one day, coax him out of his shell. My parents said no, of course. No son of theirs would be “broken” enough to need therapy.

**take some of this out, maybe? it’s becoming more about him than you. you could probably cut all of it without losing the body of the essay.**

To me, Regulus was a curiosity. From all the picture books I’d read, Regulus and I were supposed to play games of “the floor is lava” and build Lego cities together. That, however, didn’t really happen. I tried valiantly to build Gotham City out of plastic bricks; Regulus sat at my side, watching silently. Where I loved summer camp and relished soccer practices, Regulus quit both in mere weeks. Where I was loud, sometimes exasperatingly so, Regulus, of course, was silent. **where or while?**

**nice contrasts. cut down on the paragraph before to emphasize this part, though.**

The only thing Regulus seemed to enjoy was the piano—yet another difference between us. Where I had hated the instrument, how my fortes were never quite strong enough and my legatos never fluid, Regulus took to it naturally. His phrases were lyrical when they needed to be; he never stumbled over difficult passages. My parents were indescribably proud. They entered him in competitions and posted videos of his performances on Facebook. Finally, he was no longer the “broken” son. Instead, he was their prodigy. 

But all I felt was jealousy. While Regulus mastered the piano, I was trying valiantly to perfect the violin. And I was improving too, partly out of that need to be just as good as he was—finally, I could play passages with difficult up-bow staccato and breeze through three-octave scales. But my parents didn’t seem to notice at all. I saw us as rivals. I needed to win as many competitions as he did—no, more. I needed to be better. 

And then my violin teacher assigned me Zoltan Szekely’s adaptation of the Romanian Folk Dances to play at the annual winter recital.

Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances are a collection of unique pieces. While they were inspired by multiple instruments, chief among them the violin, originally, they were written only for the piano. Szekely adapted them for the piano and violin, turning a solo into a duet. My teacher had apparently learned from my mother that my brother was a pianist, and he decided that it would be wonderful for us to play the duet together. 

**can you discuss this in a more engaging way?**

There wasn’t much I could do but agree. After all, I couldn’t tell my teacher that the last thing I wanted to do was play with Regulus. 

Our first rehearsals were strained. I yelled at Regulus when he played too loudly; he made cutting remarks when my vibrato became uneven. But slowly, rehearsal after rehearsal, the piece began to come together. We worked out tempo changes and dynamics, and by a week before the recital, I’d come to find that I actually enjoyed practicing with Regulus. In fact, for the first time, I saw him as more of an actual brother than a competitor. 

**spend more time on this transition from uneasiness → friendship. this should be more important in the essay imo.**

The recital went well. There were a few mistakes, yes, but we hid each other’s flaws. At the end of the piece, the applause was for the both of us—for once, we weren’t opposites or competitors. Instead, we were playing together in harmony at last. 

**nice ending. my main comment would just be to spend more time on the transition than exposition. you spend a lot of time just giving backstory that doesn’t add much to the essay. also, over the word count and all that.**

**moony** (Today at 4:02 PM)  
but in general  
i enjoyed your essay  
you made it sound like  
it would be the most cliche  
thing on earth  
but it wasn’t

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:03 PM)  
it doesn’t matter how cliche it actually is  
if you’re an asian kid writing about music, colleges will form certain assumptions about you  
just like if you’re an asian kid writing about coding, wanting to be a doctor, your parents, or your culture

 **moony** (Today at 4:03 PM)  
the story’s good though  
like the whole  
forming a relationship with your brother  
through music

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:04 PM)  
it didn’t last for very long lmao  
he quit piano a year after we played at that recital together  
it’s the only time i can remember him ever fighting with my parents  
he accused them of basically making him into a trophy to show off to the rich assholes they called friends  
and how they didn’t actually care about how good he was at piano but just that he was better than the kids of their friends  
which wasn’t very far off the mark honestly but it Really shook my parents  
so they let him quit  
and we don’t talk that much anymore, even if we go to the same school  
he has his shitty friends and i have my good friends

 **moony** (Today at 4:06 PM)  
oh :(  
i’m sorry

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:06 PM)  
it’s fine  
it was worse when he was a freshman  
we fought a lot back then about our parents and friends and politics and shit  
now we just ignore each other lmao  
it’s easier that way

 **moony** (Today at 4:07 PM)  
i’m really sorry

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:08 PM)  
like i said, it’s fine  
if he wants to be an ignorant asshole, it’s his life

 **moony** (Today at 4:17 PM)  
anyway  
you still play violin right?

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:18 PM)  
yeah! i do  
kinda ironic  
i ended up actually enjoying violin more than regulus ever liked piano, apparently

 **moony** (Today at 4:18 PM)  
what piece are you playing right now?

For a good thirty minutes, Sirius doesn’t reply, and Remus wonders if he’s somehow managed to overstep his boundaries. Maybe Sirius thinks that Remus is trying to dox him—though that seems unlikely, given how willing Sirius is to share the most minute details of his life, and Remus doesn’t think it’s possible to dox someone with that information anyway. Given that Sirius’s Discord status still displays him as online, he’s probably just found someone more interesting to talk to than Remus. 

He’s just about to close out of Discord and boot up Night in the Woods when he gets a message from Sirius—a video, of all things. 

Remus presses play.

“Hey!” Out of frame, a bright voice that must be Sirius says. A hand, its short fingernails stained with what look like the remnants of black nail polish, waves to the camera. “So, uh, you asked me what piece I’m playing right now. I’m working on a couple, actually, but three of them are for orchestra, so I figured you didn’t want to hear those. My solo piece right now is the Saint-Saens, but it’s not very good yet, so I thought maybe I’d play the Bruch for you instead? That was my last piece. Anyway, here goes.”

To tell the truth, Remus doesn’t have much of an ear for music. Unlike Peter, who probably goes to sleep clutching his beloved trumpet, Remus is the farthest thing from a musician. In third grade, he, along with his classmates, was told by his music education teacher to pick an instrument to play for the spring concert. He chose the clarinet, mostly because the name sounded nice. Then, he spent half a year suffering through painful squeaking until his teacher took pity on him and relocated him to the percussion section. (He really rocked those cymbals.) And for the next eight years, that was the extent of his music career.

Still, he can tell that Sirius is good—really, really good. The opening notes are fluid and clear, tinged with an unmistakable longing. He breezes through octaves like it’s second nature, without even stumbling, and every high note is in tune, smoothed over by his wide vibrato. String crossings that sound incredibly difficult are mended together by his bow, and by the time the piece comes to a close, Remus has to bodily resist the urge to clap.

“I hope that was okay,” Sirius says, sounding strangely shy. “It’d sound better if I had an actual orchestra playing with me, probably, but that obviously isn’t possible. I’m kind of rusty on the cadenza, honestly—I forgot how fucking high those notes go. Let me know if it was decent anyway?”

 **moony** (Today at 5:02 PM)  
what the fuck  
that was way more than just decent  
you’re incredible

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:03 PM)  
thank you!  
sorry it took so long for me to send it  
i had to remove my nail polish

 **moony** (Today at 5:04 PM)  
wait why?

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:04 PM)  
i can’t play violin with it on, for some reason  
it throws off my balance

 **moony** (Today at 5:05 PM)  
oh  
well in any case  
you’re really really good  
you should try out for  
idk  
julliard or something

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:06 PM)  
funny you say that  
i actually did try out for julliard back in middle school  
pre-college, of course  
and i didn’t get in  
which made my parents very very angry

 **moony** (Today at 5:07 PM)  
oh  
i’m sorry :(

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:08 PM)  
it’s fine  
regulus probably would have been good enough for julliard  
if he didn’t quit, that is  
but i’m not julliard good  
i’m like all-state orchestra good lmao

 **moony** (Today at 5:09 PM)  
even if that’s true  
you sound amazing  
as far as i can tell  
you make me  
want to listen to more classical music  
which has never happened before

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:10 PM)  
classical music is super underrated  
what do you usually listen to?

Because Remus has an intensely uncooperative brain, the first and only thing that comes to mind is One Direction, and there’s no way in hell he’s saying that. Even if he has “Story of My Life” on his Guilty Pleasures Spotify playlist. He looks around his room, searching for a burst of inspiration, and his eyes land on his faded Neutral Milk Hotel poster.

 **moony** (Today at 5:15 PM)  
i listen to neutral milk hotel sometimes

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:16 PM)  
oh man are you one of those people  
who think that listening to neutral milk hotel makes them Quirky and Unique  
and wears beanies and cardigans and refuses to put sugar in their coffee

 **moony** (Today at 5:17 PM)  
i don’t appreciate  
your stereotyping  
i liked neutral milk hotel  
before it was quirky and cool  
two-headed boy  
is a masterpiece

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:18 PM)  
this seems to just confirm my stereotyping  
you’re an indie hipster, aren’t you

 **moony** (Today at 5:19 PM)  
i don’t own any beanies  
and i do like sugar in my coffee  
so no, i’m not

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:20 PM)  
i’m not convinced  
time will tell, i guess  
what else do you like?

 **moony** (Today at 5:20 PM)  
see  
now i’m very determined  
to show you that i’m not  
just an indie hipster  
so i have to think of non-indie music  
that i’ve enjoyed  
uhhhh  
is car seat headrest indie?

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:21 PM)  
definitely  
incredibly so

 **moony** (Today at 5:21 PM)  
fuck  
um  
well  
in any case  
you should listen to  
beach life-in-death  
the 2018 version  
it’s one of my favorite songs

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:22 PM)  
i’ll give it a try!

 **moony** (Today at 5:23 PM)  
anyway  
non-indie stuff  
is beach bunny indie?

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:23 PM)  
according to wikipedia, yes

 **moony** (Today at 5:24 PM)  
ughhhh  
i’m going to go out on a limb  
and guess that  
tame impala  
modern baseball  
and the honeysticks  
are indie too?

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:25 PM)  
look at those names  
of course those bands are indie

 **moony** (Today at 5:26 PM)  
fine  
you won  
i listen to  
almost exclusively  
indie music

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:26 PM)  
and that’s valid!

 **moony** (Today at 5:27 PM)  
weren’t you just  
making fun of that

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:27 PM)  
i was making fun of a specific type of person who enjoys indie music  
the pretentious asshole kind  
which you don’t seem to be so far  
even if the only thing you listen to is indie music

 **moony** (Today at 5:28 PM)  
well  
i’m happy to see  
that you don’t think of me  
as a pretentious asshole  
what do you listen to then  
non-indie person

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:29 PM)  
oh So Much stuff  
music is my lifeblood  
besides my orchestra pieces  
i’ve been listening to a lot of blackbear recently  
the foo fighters are great  
bowie’s a classic  
so are the stooges  
frank ocean’s always a vibe  
have you heard of niki?

 **moony** (Today at 5:31 PM)  
vaguely

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:32 PM)  
i like her stuff  
it’s the only way i connect with my ~ culture ~

 **moony** (Today at 5:32 PM)  
oh  
uh

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:33 PM)  
that’s a joke

 **moony** (Today at 5:33 PM)  
oh

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:34 PM)  
her stuff is good though  
i like lowkey and odds a lot  
the lyrics are good and the songs are catchy  
james is more into kendrick and khalid than i am but  
i listen to them sometimes  
his music taste is rap, taylor swift, and those meme songs you find on youtube  
once i found him listening to the kahoot lobby music on loop for five hours

 **moony** (Today at 5:36 PM)  
a man of impeccable taste

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:36 PM)  
OH and i really like mitski

 **moony** (Today at 5:37 PM)  
oh my god  
mitski’s amazing  
bury me at makeout creek  
is one of the best albums  
of the past decade

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:38 PM)  
god you’re so right  
what’s your favorite song?

 **moony** (Today at 5:38 PM)  
i don’t even know  
if i can choose  
hm  
off of bury me at makeout creek  
i like texas reznikoff  
and first love/late spring  
the most probably  
i’m a fan of that  
mellow sadness

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:40 PM)  
you’re very valid  
i like townie the most  
from that album

 **moony** (Today at 5:41 PM)  
a good choice  
and for her other albums  
hmm  
i like old friend the most  
from be the cowboy  
i bet on losing dogs  
from puberty 2  
strawberry blond  
from retired in sad, new career in business  
and bag of bones  
from lush

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:43 PM)  
all great picks  
i agree with old friend  
there’s a great animation of it on youtube  
[ https://youtu.be/eMFgKxpe1qA ](https://youtu.be/eMFgKxpe1qA)

**moony** (Today at 5:45 PM)  
oh nice  
i’ll check it out

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:45 PM)  
my favorite mitski jams are old friend, a pearl, your best american girl, my body’s made of crushed little stars, class of 2013, and liquid smooth

 **moony** (Today at 5:46 PM)  
i don’t think she has  
a single bad song

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:46 PM)  
agreed  
ugh ok james is being annoying

 **moony** (Today at 5:48 PM)  
what happened?

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:49 PM)  
for some reason our headmaster decided to give james this dumb peer leadership role where he basically makes sure the freshmen don’t die out of sheer stupidity  
and no one really takes it seriously  
except him and like  
maybe two other people  
he’s supposed to bring the freshmen down to dinner today  
which is stupid because it isn’t like the freshmen can’t walk or read signs  
but he’s doing it anyway and he’s making me help out even though i’m not part of that dumb leadership group 

**moony** (Today at 5:51 PM)  
it sounds like you  
want to be part  
of that dumb peer leadership group  
is this jealousy i see

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:51 PM)  
i Do Not want to be part of the dumb peer leadership group, Thank You Very Much  
i very much Do Not want to

 **moony** (Today at 5:52 PM)  
sure

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:52 PM)  
james is not listening to my Very Clear Reasons for why i Do Not want to help him bring the freshmen down to dinner  
it might be easier to just give in this time

 **moony** (Today at 5:52 PM)  
you’re going to let him win this battle?

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:53 PM)  
oh fuck no  
he’s getting a whole presentation later on why he shouldn’t make me help him with his dumb peer leadership shit  
the only reason i’m going to help him tonight is so that he’ll owe me a favor later

 **moony** (Today at 5:54 PM)  
sure

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:54 PM)  
he has not won this battle, remus  
not at all  
anyway  
talk to you later?

 **moony** (Today at 5:55 PM)  
yep  
have fun corralling the freshmen

 **padfoot** (Today at 5:55 PM)  
ughhhhhh

It turns out that Sirius was right—NIKI’s songs are catchy and good background music for Remus to do homework to. He hums along as he types out his poetry analysis for AP Literature, unable to stop his shoulders from bouncing. 

_When Shelley writes, “Tell that its sculptor well those passions read / Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,” he deftly highlights the contrast between how concretely Ozymandias’s features are portrayed on the statue and the stillness of the structure itself through his use of a caesura._

“Remus? Are you busy right now?” He hears his mother’s familiar knock on his door. 

“Kind of?” He looks at the three sentences he’s written, and then at the assignment sheet, where he’s highlighted _write four paragraphs analyzing a poem of your choice._ “Do you need anything?”

“I’m going to Costco, and I thought you might like to come along! Of course, if you have too much work—”

“I’ll go,” Remus says hastily. Costco isn’t exactly his favorite place in the world, but there’s always free samples, and his brain will probably turn into mush if he keeps rereading this line. 

His mother is suspiciously silent during the entire drive to Costco, which is never a good sign. The only times his mother is silent is when she’s about to spring something terrible on him, like when she signed him up for fencing camp without telling him and he spent two weeks getting jabbed in the ribs by ridiculously thin swords. 

Finally, while they’re walking down the snack aisle and Remus is examining a box of granola bars, a half-eaten sample of taquitos in his left hand, his mother begins speaking again. 

“I’ve noticed that you’ve been spending a lot of time on your laptop lately,” she starts. Remus studiously avoids her gaze, pretending to read the nutrition facts label on the back of the box. Wow, there’s a lot of sodium in this. That can’t be healthy. 

“I always spend a lot of time on my laptop, Mom,” he replies with artificial levity. “All of my classes are online, remember?”

She raises her eyebrows. “You know what I mean. You used to go outside, go to the park with your friends—”

“Back in like, fourth grade. Mom, everything’s online now. Of course I’m on my laptop.”

“You used to go to the park with your friends,” she continues, blatantly ignoring him. “You used to beg your father and me to take you to the beach, or to Busch Gardens, or Colonial Williamsburg—”

“I never wanted to go to Colonial Williamsburg. I derive negative enjoyment from watching a guy in a powdered wig churn butter and speak in a weird accent.” If he wanted to do that, he could just watch _1776._

“Oh, that’s not true,” his mother smiles. “You loved the carriage rides.”

“Everyone likes carriage rides. Horses are amazing.” They’re an S-tier animal, right behind dogs. 

“My point is that you need to go outside more,” she says. “Whenever I see you now, you’re on your phone or your laptop. Why don’t you invite one of your friends over? You could see a movie together!”

“I see my friends enough already,” Remus counters. “I call Peter literally every other night.”

“Well, what if you invited him over? Wouldn’t it be better to see him in person?”

“Not really?” Remus puts the box of granola bars back onto the shelf and picks up a box of Oreos. “Can we get these?”

“We have cookies at home already.”

“We have Fig Newtons. Those aren’t cookies. They’re barely even food.” Remus puts the box of Oreos in their shopping cart. Not even a second later, his mother’s plucked it out and set the box back on the shelf. 

“No Oreos,” she says firmly. “And why wouldn’t it be better to hang out with Peter I-R-L?”

“Please, please, never say that again,” he groans. “Please. And it wouldn’t be better because we’d just stay inside and play video games, and we don’t have to actually see each other to do that. It’s what we do already.”

His mother hums. “You never know. Wouldn’t it be more fun to play Princess Zelda in the same room?”

“Legend of Zelda, I don’t even know why you know what that is, I don’t play Zelda, and I’m not sure if it would be, actually,” Remus says, sighing. He follows his mother down a thin aisle stacked floor-to-ceiling with paper towels. “Mom, do we really need all of those rolls?” 

“You never know what might happen,” she replies ominously, dropping three enormous bundles of paper towels into the shopping cart. “Well, if you won’t invite Peter over, maybe you can come to PFLAG meetings with me?”

“Aren’t those for family and friends?” Remus asks. “And not, you know, the LAG?”

“Technically, you’re a B,” his mother says, smiling at her own joke, and Remus rolls his eyes. “And no, everyone’s welcome! Maybe you’ll meet some new friends there, or even—”

“Nope, you are not finishing that sentence,” Remus says, taking the shopping cart and steering it down the aisle. “Do we need anything else, or can we go now?”

“We’re about done for today,” his mother says, amused. “But Remus—”

“I’ll invite Peter over sometime,” Remus says. “Does that make you happy?”

“Very, very happy,” she replies. He has the feeling he’ll regret this in the future, but for now, he lets out a sigh of relief when his mother turns her attention to an apparently more pressing topic: the amount of corn syrup in snack foods. 

It’s nearing nighttime when they finally leave Costco, and the first thing he does when they get back home is jump onto his bed, bury his head in his pillow, and let out a long sigh. 

“You know, it would be really nice if it was socially acceptable for people to never leave their room,” he says to no one in particular. “I’m not saying that I’d do that, but also like, why do we need to? I have gummy vitamins to stop me from getting, I don’t know, Vitamin D deficiency, and I can basically do everything from my bed anyway. And it’s not like I’m not talking to _anyone._ We have Skype and Discord for a reason.”

“Remus? Did you say something?” his father calls. “Are you done with your math homework, or do you need my help again?”

“I finished it already,” he calls back, and then buries his head back in his pillow. He lies there, face-down, tracking the rhythm of his breath. Outside, he can hear the faint chirping of crickets—probably some of the last ones this year—and he silently composes the first lines of a poem he’ll probably never write.

 _and in the slowly cooling night i think  
_ _i hear you again, you,  
_ _the tapping on my windowsill, like  
_ _a bullet wound that has never quite healed,  
_ _and for the third not-last time, i wish aloud that  
_ _you had killed me where i stood, my trembling hands  
_ _under the uneven cries of unborn doves._

After he’s wallowed in his own despair for an appropriate amount of time—around fifteen minutes, give or take—he pulls his laptop onto his bed.

 **moony** (Today at 11:30 PM)  
do you ever wish  
that you could  
idk  
sit in your room forever  
and never leave

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:41 PM)  
not really?

 **moony** (Today at 11:41 PM)  
oh oof

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:42 PM)  
but you’re valid!  
i just don’t really like being in a single space for too long  
i get super antsy 

**moony** (Today at 11:43 PM)  
yeah  
my mom keeps trying to make me like  
go outside  
and hang out with people

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:45 PM)  
wow how terrible

 **moony** (Today at 11:45 PM)  
see my bed is just  
super nice  
and comfortable  
and who needs human interaction  
when you have the internet

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:49 PM)  
an anthem for our generation  
anyway uh  
can i tell you something?  
it’s not about the eternal problem of human interaction, unfortunately

 **moony** (Today at 11:49 PM)  
lmao  
but yeah  
of course  
what’s up?

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:50 PM)  
so uh this is kind of personal  
so it’d be good if you didn’t tell anyone about this

 **moony** (Today at 11:51 PM)  
i turn to the empty space next to me  
“hey guys”  
“i’m going to tell you all about”  
“sirius’s personal life”  
“just for shits and giggles”

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:53 PM)  
haha   
nvm then  
it’s fine

 **moony** (Today at 11:53 PM)  
fuck   
i’m sorry  
i swear i’ll take this seriously  
shit 

**padfoot** (Today at 11:55 PM)  
it’s ok  
so yeah uh  
the personal thing

Of course, this is the moment when his mother walks into his room, this time without even bothering to knock on his door. Quickly, he shuts his laptop. 

“Are you done with all of your homework?” she asks, leaning on the doorway. 

“Yes, Mom,” he sighs, stretching. Most of it. He’ll finish the poetry analysis tomorrow morning. “Is that all?”

“I’m also here to remind you to invite Peter over to our house,” she smiles, and Remus rolls his eyes.

“I’ll do it right now,” he says, picking up his phone. “Hi, Peter. I was wondering if you want to come over to my house sometime? We can play some games or just chill. Let me know when you’re free.” He holds up his phone. “There. Sent. Is that good?”

“Wonderful,” she says. She glances at his clock. “And go to bed soon. It’s past midnight already.”

“I will,” he promises. 

“But brush your teeth first!” 

“I’m seventeen, I don’t need to be reminded to brush my teeth,” he says, sighing, but she’s already closing his door and walking out of his room. 

When he opens up Discord again, he sees two missed messages from Sirius, and—oh. He probably shouldn’t have closed his laptop. 

**padfoot** (Today at 12:03 AM)  
i’m gay

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:14 AM)  
remus?

 **moony** (Today at 12:15 AM)  
fuck  
i’m sorry  
so so sorry  
my mom came in my room  
talked to me for a bit  
and then i brushed my teeth  
but i’m here now

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:15 AM)  
it’s fine

 **moony** (Today at 12:16 AM)  
thank you for trusting me with this  
and i’m here for you  
i know how hard  
coming out can be  
and just know that  
you aren’t alone  
and you are strong  
and brave  
and wonderful  
and you’re going to do  
absolutely amazing things  
and i don’t think it’s come up before  
but i’m bi  
so uh  
real queer solidarity hours?

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:19 AM)  
real queer solidarity hours

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:25 AM)  
you’re only the third person i’ve ever come out to  
actually  
please don’t tell anyone else?

 **moony** (Today at 12:26 AM)  
again  
thank you for trusting me with this  
and i won’t  
i swear i won’t

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:26 AM)  
<3

And fuck, this _really_ shouldn’t be what he’s taking away from this conversation, but what the fuck does a heart mean? Does it mean anything at all if it’s sent over Discord, and, at its most molecular level, is just a bunch of pixels on a screen? Is Remus just emotionally repressed and unable to comprehend the concept of platonic love and friends sending hearts to each other? Friends being bros, bros being friends?

Can he tell Lily about this? No, of course he can’t; if he did, he’d have to bring up the part before, and he won’t do that, would never give away someone else’s secret, someone else’s identity like that. 

“Remus, I can see that your light is still on! If you don’t go to bed, I’m going to shut off the Internet!” Even three rooms away, his mother’s voice rings down the hallway as clear as a bell, cutting through his frantic thoughts.

“One second!” he shouts. Is it weird if he sends a heart back? Is it weirder if he doesn’t? It’s probably weirder if he doesn’t.

 **moony** (Today at 12:33 AM)  
<3  
anyway  
my mom just   
threatened  
to shut off the wifi  
if i don’t go to sleep right now  
so  
talk more tomorrow?  
i’m super proud of you  
for telling me this  
good night

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:35 AM)  
gn!

 **padfoot** (Today at 2:14 AM)  
ok so i know you’re asleep but  
thanks again for being there for me   
i feel a lot better now  
even though i’m still not out to most people at my school and stuff  
you know?  
anyway   
good night  
for real this time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i enjoy almost all the bands and musicians listed in this chapter, especially neutral milk hotel and mitski. (i agree with all the mitski opinions stated in this chapter.) remus is an indie nerd, and so am i.
> 
> kudos + comments fuel me! <3


	6. september iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus calls Lily, freaks out, and somehow manages to scrounge up the courage to watch a movie with Sirius.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter got very meta. assume that when i have remus and sirius discuss simon snow and the (fictional) author gemma t. leslie, both creations of rainbow rowell, i’m really just using it as a stand-in for harry potter and addressing a lot of my problems with the harry potter series and jkr, just because i figured it’d be a bit too weird to have remus and sirius, characters from harry potter, commentating on harry potter. 
> 
> as a result, i don’t think you need to know anything about simon snow to understand their conversation. and on that note, fuck jkr. trans rights are human rights.

**Tell us about a place or community you call home. How has it shaped your perspective? (250 words)**

To me, comfort is long, sleepless nights spent under the covers of my bed, scrolling through Submittable entries in search of the best poetry to publish in the next edition of _The Quibbler._

I joined _The Quibbler_ back in ninth grade, when I thought that slant rhymes were the height of poetic genius. They were looking for poetry readers, and despite the fact that the only poetry I had ever really read was Shakespeare and Frost, the editor-in-chief took me on. 

As a poetry reader, I was responsible for scrutinizing and editing every piece of poetry that was sent into our Submittable inbox, from haikus to limericks to long-form prose poems. And as I read, I realized what the draw of poetry was. There are things we can say in poetry that we can’t say in any other form. Where else can love be so visceral, so terrifying than in a poem?

In poems, I read about experiences that I’d never had myself. I traveled to Istanbul, Beijing, and Rome; I was an astronaut, a selkie, and god i hate supplements so much when will this bullshit be over 

**Remus (9:25 AM):** lily why are college essays the worst

 **Lily (9:28 AM):** because colleges want to see your “true self” but you can never be too truthful because they only want to hear the good stuff, which is usually something “unique” that only super privileged kids have done anyway 

**Lily (9:30 AM):** oh and the prompts are really dry

 **Remus (9:31 AM):** all very good points

 **Remus (9:32 AM):** btw are you busy right now?

 **Lily (9:33 AM):** nah multi was cancelled today because of some junior-only assembly

 **Remus (9:33 AM):** wanna call

 **Lily (9:34 AM):** yes always

 **Lily (9:35 AM):** i have so much to tell you about

When Remus picks up Lily’s call, the first thing out of her mouth is, “Hi, hope you’re having a good day, and do guys make bets on girls in real life?” Today, she looks strangely frazzled—her hair, usually impeccable, lies in a tangled heap around her shoulders, and there are worryingly dark circles under her eyes. 

“What?” Remus scrunches up his nose, confused. “Do you mean like how people bet on dogs and horses?”

“No, I mean like how assholes bet on girls for prom night in movies like _She’s All That_ and _How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days,”_ Lily replies. She huffs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and taps a pen impatiently against her desk. 

“I don’t think so? Why?”

“Potter,” Lily grumbles. “He’s up to something, I just know it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ever since school started, he’s been _nice_ and _helpful,”_ Lily says, with the reluctant air of someone admitting that they really, truly enjoyed _The Emoji Movie,_ and would gladly pay money to watch a sequel. 

“You know, sometimes people are just nice,” Remus replies. 

“But not Potter,” Lily says firmly. “He doesn’t know how to be nice or helpful at all, because he’s too busy complimenting himself in the mirror—that’s metaphorical, Remus, don’t make some joke about Stuart Smalley, please.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Remus says innocently. Not about Stuart Smalley, anyway. He was thinking of a Zoolander joke.

“Like I was saying, he’s—changed. He hasn’t pulled any of his stupid pranks like setting a bunch of roosters loose in the quad again, he didn’t make any “your mom” jokes when we talked about Oedipus in English, and he _volunteered_ to lead the freshmen down to dinner! No one volunteers to lead the freshmen down to dinner!” Lily tugs at the ends of her hair furiously. “It doesn’t make any sense, Remus. So I made a flow chart, you know, with everything I’ve noticed so far—”

“A flow chart? Wouldn’t a Venn diagram be better? You know, a Potter now versus a Potter before?”

“Well, I made a flow chart already, and I’m not throwing it out,” Lily replies, pulling out a large sheet of poster paper boasting a meticulously highlighted and diagrammed flow chart. “And I think I figured it out.”

“Oh?”

“Well, remember when I told you that Potter spent our freshman year asking me out literally every weekend?” Lily says, her lips twisted in disgust. Remus nods. “That’s why he’s being nice.”

“Because he asked you out in freshman year?” Remus asks, bemused.

“No, Remus. Because he’s still angry I turned him down back then, so he made a bet with Black to try to get me to go out with him, and then he’s going to dump me in front of the entire school in an attempt to humiliate me.”

“I think that’s just the plot of like, three different rom-coms at once.”

“Well, clearly, he’s not original,” Lily says, crossing her arms over her chest. “And I’m not going to let him do it. No, when he asks me out, I’m going to tell him that I’m onto him, and that it’s petty, rude, and frankly cruel to ask anyone out just to win a bet.”

“Lily, this kind of sounds like the plot of a really bad movie,” Remus replies. “And how do you know he made a bet?”

In an instant, Lily deflates. “I don’t,” she admits, sighing. “God, Remus, am I just going insane?”

“I don’t think you are,” Remus reassures her.

“I think I am,” she says. “Everything’s just—it’s all too much at once, you know? I’m getting four hours of homework every night, my Wellesley supplement’s still shitty even though I’ve rewritten it three times, auditions for the fall musical are in less than a week, apparently our Robotics Team will fall apart if I’m not there to babysit everyone, Sev keeps trying to talk to me and I’ve had to block him on three different Instagram accounts, and Potter’s literally _everywhere,_ being all _nice_ and _thoughtful._ Fuck, yeah, I’m going insane.”

“You aren’t,” Remus says firmly. “You’re under a lot of stress. Is there anything you can drop? Maybe a club or something?”

“I don’t know. Well—” Lily gnaws at her lip. “I could cut down on prefect duties, but I’d have to give more of them to Potter.”

“Is he good at—whatever prefects do?”

“I guess. I mean, he hasn’t managed to make any of the freshmen cry yet—”

“Wait, what?”

“Oh, fuck, I never told you! Yeah, last year, one of the prefects accidentally made a freshman girl cry after he told her that it didn’t matter how hard she worked because MIT would reject her anyway.”

“How do you tell that to someone _accidentally?”_

“It was right after Pi Day. I think he was projecting and she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Still!”

“Yeah, so the bar for being a good prefect is actually pretty low.” Lily rolls her eyes. “But I still don’t want to have to go to Potter for help.”

“Is there anyone else you can ask?”

“Not really. It’s going to have to be him,” Lily sighs. “God, he’s going to laugh at me when I tell him all of this, isn’t he.”

“Well, if he’s really turned over a new leaf, he won’t,” Remus reasons. “He’ll be understanding.”

“Hopefully,” Lily says. She rubs her eyes. “God, Remus, I’m sorry. I feel like all I’ve been doing lately is dumping all my bullshit onto you.”

“You’re not,” Remus says sincerely. “Look, you’re my friend. I’m always here to help.”

Lily shakes her head. “No. From now on, just shut me up whenever I start talking too much about myself, will you? And tell me what’s going on with you! Anything new? Any developments with the boy you have a math crush on?” She waggles her eyebrows lecherously, and Remus groans.

“No developments,” he lies. 

“Really?” Lily props her head up on her hand and gives him that grin he knows too well—the grin that says “I’m not going to stop asking about this until you give me an acceptable answer.” “Are you sure about that?”

“Very.”

“Are you _sure?”_

“Fine. I edited his Common App essay.” And listened to him play violin, talked to him about their favorite songs, and sent and received possibly platonic hearts. 

“Very exciting,” Lily says dryly. She points a finger at him accusingly. “You’re not telling me everything.”

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.”

“Remus, you know that you’re one of my best friends, right? You’re smart, kind, helpful, and honest,” Lily wheedles. 

“You’re one of my best friends too!” Remus says cheerily.

Lily sighs. “I should’ve known that wouldn’t work on you.”

“And you were right.”

“So there’s nothing going on in your life at all?” Lily asks. “Come on, Remus, you know you can tell me anything.”

Don’t bring up the platonic hearts. Don’t bring up the platonic hearts. Don’t bring up the platonic hearts.

“So, uh, Lily, do you ever send hearts to your friends?” Remus asks, and immediately wants to hit himself in the face with a frying pan. 

“Like, heart emojis?” Lily looks visibly confused, and Remus nods. 

“Specifically to your friends,” he adds. 

“Probably? Like, I’ve definitely sent them to Marley before or told her ‘I love you,’ you know?” Lily twirls a pen between her fingers. “Why? What happened?”

“Uh—” Don’t bring up Sirius. Don’t bring up Sirius. “I was just, you know, wondering if it’d be normal to send Peter a heart. As a show of my, uh, appreciation for our friendship.” Okay, not great, Lupin, but it’s better than it could have been.

“I mean, it all depends on the context? And how affectionate you guys are usually, I guess. And I’m comfortable sending hearts to Marley because we’ve been friends for years and we’re not, like, romantically attracted to each other, but I probably wouldn’t send hearts to someone like Frank Longbottom because even though we’re friends, we’re not _that_ close, and there’s always the chance that he likes me as more than just a friend, which would be super awkward, you know?” Lily eyes him dubiously.

Remus does his best to beam innocently, despite the fact that his heart’s now beating at a pace that can probably be called exceedingly unhealthy, because the truth is, he _hasn’t_ known Sirius for that long, and he also _does_ feel attracted to, at the minimum, Sirius’s ability to solve an integral, so maybe the hearts that Remus sent, at the very least, might not fall under the category of Normal and Platonic, and that is a very, very bad thing.

Lily sighs. “Should I assume this’ll all make sense later?”

“Probably,” Remus replies, and Lily rolls her eyes. Thankfully, she doesn’t press the matter further, and internally, he lets out a sigh of relief. 

**moony** (Today at 11:32 AM)  
okay  
i’ll bite  
let me hear it

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:35 AM)  
?

 **moony** (Today at 11:36 AM)  
your custom status on discord  
“dm me to hear me rant about simon snow and baz pitch”

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:36 AM)  
OH YES  
remus ready yourself for the Rant Of A Lifetime

 **moony** (Today at 11:36 AM)  
i’m ready

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:37 AM)  
ok i presume you have heard of simon snow, the Best But Also Worst Book Series Ever 

**moony** (Today at 11:37 AM)  
yeah i read it as a kid  
just like  
you know  
every other kid   
in the united states  
and beyond

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:38 AM)  
smh i’m not here for this hate  
anyway!  
Simon No Motherfucking Middle Name Snow

 **moony** (Today at 11:38 AM)  
i thought his middle name was oliver?

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:38 AM)  
in fact, my dear friend, it is not!  
canonically we never learn simon’s middle name  
somewhere along the line the simon snow fandom was just like  
“oliver is a good middle name for him”  
i think it was from that one Super Popular fanfiction  
simon snow and the rationality machine or some shit  
where simon’s ridiculously smart and also kind of a dick  
the one written by the guy who was actually using it to like  
further his academic theories about artificial sentience?   
something like that

 **moony** (Today at 11:40 AM)  
oh okay

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:40 AM)  
alternatively people might have thought  
“simon oliver snow”  
s.o.s.   
yeah that sounds like simon  
always in danger  
needs help  
good middle name  
Anyway Back To The Rant  
so, firstly, have you ever noticed how gemma t leslie kind of…sucks as a writer?

 **moony** (Today at 11:41 AM)  
given that she’s the most popular author   
in america  
and britain  
and probably the world tbh  
and has made millions of dollars  
from her books  
no  
i have not

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:41 AM)  
wow do you mean you don’t spend your days thinking about  
how a beloved children’s book series is actually Seriously Lacking  
on the front of diversity?  
crazy 

**moony** (Today at 11:42 AM)  
i don’t  
given that   
i read these books when i was  
in elementary school  
and then  
completely forgot about them

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:42 AM)  
remus, you live a sad, sad life  
anyway, gtl is Seriously Flawed  
but let’s start off with the stuff in her books first  
before i talk about how she’s a terrible person and all that  
anyway, case one: penelope bunce, simon’s best friend  
it’s great that we have a strong female character   
who is unapologetically proud of her background as a half-punjabi woman  
and rebels against Traditional Gender Stereotypes   
However, There Is A Problem Here

 **moony** (Today at 11:45 AM)  
*drumrolls for dramatic effect*

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:45 AM)  
thank you for the drumroll  
gtl queercoded penelope and then when she realized that  
she Immediately shoved her into a relationship with micah  
The Random American Exchange Student

 **moony** (Today at 11:46 AM)  
i liked micah and penelope :(  
they’re wholesome

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:46 AM)  
micah is fine on his own  
the problem is Why She Shoved Micah And Penelope Together  
people were shipping penelope with trixie

 **moony** (Today at 11:47 AM)  
who’s trixie again?

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:47 AM)  
penelope’s pixie roommate  
one of the Only Canonically Queer Characters  
whose queerness is basically played for laughs?? like she’s basically a punchline  
“oh trixie the pixie who’s always making out with random girls”  
there is a Problem Here  
A Very Big Problem

 **moony** (Today at 11:49 AM)  
oh   
yeah i can  
very much  
see the problem here

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:50 AM)  
i could go on about how Shitty gtl was to trixie for ages but Anyway! Penelope Bunce  
early on a lot of people started shipping penelope and trixie together  
because they’ve kinda got that reluctant friends to lovers thing going on  
(this wasn’t as big of a ship as snowbaz of course, which i Will Address Later)  
(but it still had a decently large fanbase, especially for a f/f ship)  
gtl was Not Having This  
micah was The Solution  
and yeah! she could have Totally still made penny bi or pan  
like that would have been great! a Central Character who could be canonically queer  
but No. gtl decided to confirm that penelope is Only Straight  
Very, Very Heterosexual  
but that’s not the Only Problem here. penelope is also one of the Only woc  
in the entire series  
which is also….Very Annoying  
given how diverse britain is  
sure there’s diversity in the sense that there are like  
half-pixie characters   
but there’s literally no prominent poc characters besides penelope

 **moony** (Today at 11:54 AM)  
yeah i can see how that would be  
a Very Big Problem as well

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:54 AM)  
it is Indeed  
and that’s not even to mention gtl’s transphobia

 **moony** (Today at 11:55 AM)  
wait i did hear about that  
it’s really fucking terrible

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:56 AM)  
seriously! how do you manage to write a story that’s ostensibly about acceptance and inclusivity and still end up a transphobe  
it’s literally disgusting  
trans women are women, trans men are men, and nonbinary people are nonbinary  
it’s just that simple  
and trans rights are human rights

 **moony** (Today at 11:58 AM)  
exactly  
trans rights are human rights

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:58 AM)  
god i could go on about how terrible gtl is for fucking hours  
there’s a super good rebuttal to what gtl’s said about trans people on twitter, point by point  
here’s the link: <https://twitter.com/Carter_AndrewJ/status/1270787941275762689>  
in short gtl is terrible. she’s a billionaire who uses her platform to demonize a marginalized group whose members are at risk of violence every single day. there’s never any reason to not use people’s chosen pronouns, trans rights are not a threat to any other rights, especially not women’s rights, trans people have always existed, literally no one is being “forced to transition,” and transphobes, including gtl, can and should fuck off. 

**moony** (Today at 12:02 PM)  
hear hear  
fuck transphobes  
and i’ll definitely check that thread out  
and read the whole thing asap

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:03 PM)  
but anyway i led you here under the guise of me ranting about simon and baz so  
i shall now present you with my thesis  
Simon Snow and Baz Pitch: The Epitome of Enemies to Lovers

 **moony** (Today at 12:04 PM)  
i am  
intrigued   
please continue  
tbh i never really liked baz  
like he kept trying to kill his roommate  
i’m pretty sure if like  
they went to a normal school  
baz would have gotten expelled  
in like  
first year

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:05 PM)  
they go to watford though  
which is very much not a normal school  
i mean if any normal school had the shit that happens at watford  
happen there  
the whole school would have been shut down   
in the equivalent of like, year two of simon’s schooling  
and also baz pitch deserved the world. the boy is Misunderstood  
he’s a fucking vampire whose mom died and his roommate hates him  
he is Understandably sad about this

 **moony** (Today at 12:08 PM)  
didn’t he  
torture a girl’s cat  
in the first book

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:09 PM)  
we don’t talk about that  
anyway! simon/baz, better known as snowbaz  
also known as the Best, Most Valid Simon Snow Ship

 **moony** (Today at 12:10 PM)  
isn’t simon dating agatha?

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:10 PM)  
canonically yes but the simon/agatha ship is…ughhhh  
i could also go on about how gtl butchered agatha’s character as the books went on  
and not just gtl but also the fucking movies, which took away literally all of her character development  
by the end of the books she has no canon personality besides Pretty and Nice  
which might work for like  
a minor character   
but she’s the fucking love interest  
she Should have characterization besides Pretty and Nice  
(also there’s one fanfiction that does this super well)  
(it’s an au and explores an agatha who’s darker because of the deaths of her parents)  
(and she forms these amazing bonds with other women)  
(and it ends up simon/agatha but the relationship develops Naturally)  
(and agatha is a badass in it)  
(canonically though agatha has almost No Personality)  
anyway i really dislike the canonical simon/agatha ship  
i also HATE love triangles in general  
the whole simon/agatha/baz love triangle is so fucking annoying and unnecessary   
especially because we knew gtl was going to have simon and agatha end up together  
no matter what  
so there’s not even the excuse of dramatic tension  
now, onto the real discourse  
Why Snowbaz is the Superior Ship: A Manifesto

 **moony** (Today at 12:16 PM)  
i’m ready  
to hear this

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:16 PM)  
you better be  
case one: gtl accidentally wrote simon as bi  
simon’s Constantly Describing how hot other guys are  
like not just baz, although it’s mostly baz  
“glittering dark eyes”  
“easy fall of black hair, framing his face”  
“his luminous eyes”  
“his handsome face”  
“the soft smirk of his plump red lips”  
all of these are actual ways simon has described baz  
like bitch the fuck

 **moony** (Today at 12:19 PM)  
bruh 

**padfoot** (Today at 12:20 PM)  
case two: simon and baz are so wrapped up in each other  
it’s almost funny  
in the entirety of book six  
simon basically follows baz around  
everywhere he goes  
convinced baz is up to no good  
but while he does that he keeps describing like  
every movement of baz  
which we honestly didn’t need to know but  
i love it  
and we can’t forget the infamous thirty seven line stare

 **moony** (Today at 12:22 PM)  
what’s that?

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:22 PM)  
there’s a part in the sixth book where  
baz canonically looks at simon for thirty seven lines  
“Baz’s dark eyes fixated on Simon’s own.”  
this is while simon is having an argument with penelope  
very loudly, might i mention  
and then, thirty seven lines later  
“Finally, Baz turned away from Simon, and he seemed to be studying the floor.”  
like bro there is Nothing Heterosexual about any of this  
and the fact that this was Described…  
we didn’t need to know that baz was staring at simon the whole time  
but we Do, and it’s beautiful 

**moony** (Today at 12:24 PM)  
do you think gtl put it there on purpose   
or was it just  
lazy writing

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:25 PM)  
gtl is, again, shitty about non-performative representation   
but Perhaps It Was On Purpose  
anyway, case three: they just work together  
simon’s impulsive and rash  
baz holds him back, often  
but on the other hand simon will also hold baz back from his whims of casual cruelty  
they work together  
they balance each other out and make each other better people  
and obviously gtl never bothered to give baz like  
a proper fucking redemption arc  
just simon and baz finally shaking hands in the last book  
but the possibility for a redemption arc was always There  
and a bunch of authors wrote it super well  
you probably don’t read fanfiction but there’s this one author  
magicath   
who wrote this Super Long (like i’m talking 300k+ words long) snowbaz fanfiction  
called carry on, simon  
that’s an au of the last book  
and the characterization is beautiful. she treats everyone so well  
even agatha, who’s often demonized in snowbaz fanfiction  
she’s the author gtl Wishes She Could Be

 **moony** (Today at 12:31 PM)  
i shall  
take your word  
for it  
anyway   
you have given me  
many thoughts for today  
i can see it  
granted i also can’t recall  
most of the details   
of the simon snow series  
and i also didn’t watch like  
most of the movies

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:33 PM)  
oh i also didn’t watch all of the movies lmao

 **moony** (Today at 12:34 PM)  
smh   
what kind of a simon snow fan  
are you

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:35 PM)  
the movies are shitty  
the only decent one was the sixth one  
and that’s because the director didn’t read the book  
and was functioning under the impression  
that baz was gay the entire time  
and told the actor of baz, and i quote, to play him as “a gay junkie”  
(which is pretty obviously problematic but anyway)  
he was referring to baz being a vampire   
and needing to hide it  
but also baz’s obsession with simon  
and simon’s obsession with baz

 **moony** (Today at 12:38 PM)  
oh wow

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:39 PM)  
yeah the director only worked on that one movie  
his other stuff was like  
wack realism, gritty romance shit  
but it made the movie actually semi-bearable to watch

 **moony** (Today at 12:40 PM)  
i’ll take your word for it  
given that  
i never watched it

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:40 PM)  
on that note  
would you be up for watching it with me?  
not right now, of course  
just, you know, later  
my parents decided to drop a bunch of money on hbo for whatever reason and i saw the movie was on there the other day

 **moony** (Today at 12:40 PM)  
what time?

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:41 PM)  
tonight at eight? i’m est

 **moony** (Today at 12:41 PM)  
works for me

And then, because Remus Lupin is a fucking idiot who says things before actually thinking them through, he quits Discord and proceeds to have yet another miniature breakdown.

What the fuck is he doing? Even disregarding stranger danger and all that, can he really sit through a two-hour movie with someone who he’s sent probably-not-platonic hearts to? God, will Sirius want them to turn their cameras on? That’s something that people do when they watch a movie together, right?

Remus examines himself critically in his wardrobe mirror. His hair is sticking up in three different directions, there are bags under his eyes that are so dark they wouldn’t look out of place in a Tim Burton movie, and he’s been wearing the same blue hoodie for two days. Yep, he’s a fucking paragon of beauty. 

Maybe he should just say no. He could tell Sirius that something came up unexpectedly, that he has too much homework tonight to watch a movie. He could say that he’s suddenly come down with the stomach flu and can’t even move a muscle without wanting to throw up. Those are valid excuses, right?

He shouldn’t do it. He barely knows Sirius, after all.

 _You’ve recommended him songs and spilled out half of your life story to him through your essays,_ an annoying voice in his head says. _And you were fine calling Lily before you even knew her real name._

 _I was in middle school,_ he counters. _If anything, I should know better by now._

 _But you know a lot more about Sirius than you did about Lily,_ the voice sing-songs.

Remus imagines himself as one of those cartoon protagonists, an angel on one shoulder and a devil on another. Well, more like a shrunken-down version of himself on one shoulder and a confident, popular, lacrosse player-version of himself from an alternate universe on the other. 

_But I never had a crush on Lily,_ Real Remus says.

 _Liar,_ Lax Bro Remus sings. _Liar, liar, pants on fire! Remember freshman year? When you couldn’t even call her without blushing? When you wrote sad poetry in all lowercase about her smile? When you asked on Quora how to style your hair so girls would notice you?_

 _Shut the fuck up. And I didn’t_ do _anything about that crush. This would be doing something, which is a lot worse,_ Real Remus reasons.

 _Liar! Remember when you asked her if she wanted to watch_ The Empire Strikes Back _with you, and you were trembling the whole time you were watching, and afterwards you told her that you liked her and she asked, “Wait, was this a date?” And then you nodded, and she said, “Sorry, my parents won’t let me date,” but then a few weeks later she complained about how her parents really wanted her to get a boyfriend?_ Lax Bro Remus guffaws and slaps his knee. _It’s a real miracle your friendship survived that._

 _Is this supposed to be an argument_ for _watching a movie with Sirius? You’re not making a very good case here._

Lax Bro Remus shrugs. _The way I see it, you’re going to fuck this up eventually anyway, so why not take a chance and see how it goes now? Worst comes to worst, you still get a movie out of it._

And fine, he does kind of want to watch a movie with Sirius. Platonically. Just as Internet friends. 

_Don’t make me regret this,_ he says to Lax Bro Remus.

Lax Bro Remus smirks. _Good luck! You’ll need it._

So instead of drafting and sending a paragraph-long message full of reasons he can’t watch a movie with Sirius, Remus spends the next seven hours trying (read: failing) to do his calculus homework, finishing Night in the Woods, and generally screaming into the void. 

After what seems like an eternity, eight o’clock rolls around, and Remus looks around his room.

A pillow for him to prop his laptop up on while they watch the movie? Check.

His embarrassingly comfortable penguin-patterned pajama pants? Check. 

A cup of hot chocolate? Check.

He flops onto his bed, arranges his laptop on the pillow, and clicks accept on Sirius’s incoming Discord call.

“Hey!” A hand waves to the camera. “Sorry, one sec.” The video blurs. “James, get your lax shit off my bed!”

“It’s just a fucking sweatshirt! Move it yourself!” That must be the infamous James, then. 

“It’s _your_ sweatshirt!”

A groan. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Fuck me yourself, you coward.”

A laugh. “Yeah, yeah.” Footsteps thud across the floor. “There. Are you happy?”

“Fucking ecstatic. Don’t you have a fucking prefect meeting to go to or something?”

“Oh shit!” Some rustling, and then the slamming of a door.

“Ugh, sorry about James. Okay, one second.” The video blurs again, and then Remus comes face-to-face with Sirius, and—

God. What the actual fuck.

Sirius has dark, gently curling hair that tumbles down to his shoulders, incredibly sharp cheekbones, and _dimples._ He has the barest hint of a smile dancing on his lips, and it makes Remus want to do ridiculous, impractical things like serenade him with a boombox or throw pebbles at his bedroom window. To put it lightly, he’s probably the most attractive person Remus has ever seen.

Crush? Confirmed.

Panic? Amplified. 

Courage? Eviscerated. 

“Hi,” Remus manages to croak out. Sirius’s smile widens into a grin, and in that moment, Remus swears that he can see a golden halo surround his head. Then, suddenly, the grin falls.

“Your camera’s not on,” Sirius says accusingly, frowning. 

“It’s not,” Remus confirms. There’s no way he can turn on his camera, especially not when Sirius is more attractive than Paul Rudd and Remus looks like the uglier cousin of Oscar the Grouch. 

“Why not?” 

“Uh—” Say something reasonable. “Security reasons.”

“Security reasons?” Sirius laughs. “Look, you can see that I’m not some middle-aged creep. Come on, I have mine on.” Sirius gives Remus puppy dog eyes that really, really shouldn’t be so effective. 

Remus sighs. “Fine.” He positions his pillow in front of his face and then turns on his camera. 

“There! See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Then, Sirius frowns again. “Oh, come on!”

“It’s on,” Remus says. He waves. “Hi. I’m here. You can see that I’m a person.”

“No, I can see the top of your head,” Sirius replies. 

“Which implies that I am, in fact, a person.”

Sirius rolls his eyes. “Fine, have it your way. Should I start sharing my screen?”

Remus gives a thumbs-up from behind his pillow, and a few minutes later, the opening theme to _Simon Snow and the Six White Hares_ fills his headphones.

He recognizes some of the scenes as they watch: Simon having his first real argument with the Mage, Simon finding a hare in the ritual tower, the uncomfortably long scene where Simon attempts to ask out Agatha. Mostly, though, he finds himself accidentally watching Sirius—the gentle curve of his lips, the brightness of his eyes, the unabashed way he laughs at every joke, even the truly terrible puns, his steady stream of quiet, wry commentary. 

“God, I forgot how awkward this part was,” Sirius groans. On screen, Simon and Agatha are—well, kissing would probably be a kind way to put it. Really, they’re mashing their lips together wetly, and the actress playing Agatha looks like she’d rather be kissing a dead snake. “Is it possible for two people to have negative chemistry?”

“Apparently,” Remus says dryly. “To be fair, they couldn’t have known that Agatha and Simon would get together when they were making the first movie, right?”

“I mean, there’s only two female characters who are Simon’s age and have more than twenty lines of dialogue in the entire series,” Sirius says. “They had a fifty-fifty shot.”

Remus shrugs. “They did their best.”

“Really?” Sirius cocks an eyebrow. “You’re going to tell me that _this_ is their best?”

On screen, Agatha says flatly, “I’ve dreamed about this, Simon. You and me, us together. Have you?” 

“Of course I have,” Simon replies, just as flatly. “Agatha, to me, you are the sun. No one can ever burn as brightly as you.” 

Remus winces. “Maybe you have a point,” he concedes. “But—”

“Wait, wait, this next part is actually really good,” Sirius says, shushing him. “Okay, just a little more—”

The camera sweeps up, and the scene transitions to the dormitory—Baz sitting on his bed, Simon standing in front of him. 

“I know you’re hiding something, Baz,” Simon says, stepping closer to the other boy.

“What, Snow?” Baz looks up at Simon, his smile twisted and sharp. “What, did you finally figure out that I copied your homework last week? Your handwriting’s terrible, Snow—”

“Not that,” Simon snaps. “Look, I don’t know what you’re hiding, but you’re hiding _something,_ and I’m going to find out what it is.”

“Oh? And how do you plan to do that?” Baz’s lip quirks up. “You’re not exactly Sherlock Holmes.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Simon says, a determined set to his chin.

“Good luck with that,” Baz snorts. “We’ve been living together for six years now—you’d think you would have figured it out sooner. After all, they say that your Watford roommate is destined to be a friend for life.”

“Six years of misery,” Simon retorts. “And maybe I would want to be your friend if you didn’t so obviously hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, Snow,” Baz says softly. “After six years together, how could I? How could I ever hate you?” The camera zooms in on their faces, side by side, two foils coming together yet again. Then, Baz looks away, and the scene cuts. 

“I don’t think this was in the books?” 

“It wasn’t,” Sirius confirms. “The director just added it in, for whatever reason, but I’m not going to complain about it. Especially since it’s the last good scene in the whole movie.”

“The whole movie? Really?”

“Yeah. Just watch.”

Forty-five minutes, a strangely choreographed fight scene, and two more unbearably awkward kisses later, Remus has to concede that Sirius was right. 

“That was, uh, interesting,” Remus says as the credits begin to roll across the screen.

“You can see why I haven’t watched most of the movies,” Sirius replies. “The seventh one’s ten times worse than this, if you can imagine it.”

“I definitely can,” Remus says, stretching. Suddenly, Sirius brightens, and Remus realizes a moment too late that his pillow is no longer covering his face. 

“Well, hello there,” Sirius says, his smile wide and pleased. “You’ve finally decided to prove that you’re not secretly an android.”

“Was that ever even an option?”

Sirius shrugs. “It could have been. Why were you even hiding?”

“Um.” Remus gestures to himself, and then to Sirius. “I think it’s obvious?”

“No?” Sirius furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Never mind. Can we say it was a stranger danger thing again?”

“Sure,” Sirius says, rolling his eyes. Then, he smiles. “This was really fun. We should do it again sometime.”

“Watch more Simon Snow movies?”

“Well, if you want to torture yourself like that, be my guest,” Sirius says. “Or we could watch something else, or just, you know, call and talk to each other.”

Remus hesitates. Sensing his silence, Sirius adds, “We don’t have to if you don’t want to, though. Just—if you want.”

“No, I want to,” Remus decides. “Um, I had a really nice time tonight.” He tries his best to smile, and from his screen, Sirius beams back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “simon snow and the rationality machine” is a reference to the controversial harry potter fanfiction “harry potter and the methods of rationality.” the fanfiction sirius references with agatha as a strong female character is a reference to “the changeling” by annerb, a ginny-centric fanfiction on ao3 that i absolutely adored. 
> 
> on that note, sirius’s feelings about agatha are very much not my own about ginny—i love ginny so, so much. she's an icon who isn't afraid to say what's on her mind + is just wonderful. i could read stories about ginny all day. 
> 
> i also don’t think the real harry potter movies are as bad as the fictional simon snow movies. alternatively, the fictional simon snow movies might not be very bad at all, and sirius and remus are just harsh critics. 
> 
> the (fictional) thirty seven line is a reference to the very real forty line stare in the order of the phoenix, where remus stares at sirius canonically for forty lines straight. the “gay junkie” reference is from an actual instruction cuaron gave to thewlis in the prisoner of azkaban movie. in short, this whole chapter is ridiculously meta, and i had a ton of fun writing it. 
> 
> also, i made playlists for remus + sirius! they’re made up of songs i think they’d enjoy listening to.
> 
> remus playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2D9TjOsoLF97ejnuLqtwJS?si=eB3wqXkzTc-bBR1QcDycmg 
> 
> sirius playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0dqneAlY825uLRcajMbIv6?si=MbaGqJU9RyCKmgPEwdomyg 
> 
> kudos + comments fuel me! <3


	7. october i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus calls Sirius, Lily has Halloween on her mind, and Peter wants Remus to go to a party.

**Admissions Advice Corner** **  
** **#announcements | Server upkeep + general information!**

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 3:42 PM) **  
** @everyone AAC is hosting its third annual halloween memes contest! our reigning winner is the incomparable  @amy [ucla ‘22], who dazzled us last year with her jack o’lantern edits. 

winners of this contest will get a custom “meme champ” role, color to be chosen at their discretion, as well as a month of discord nitro, courtesy of our generous mod  @turtleeee. 

send us your best skeleton-related or college admissions-relevant memes in #meme-contest before october 30th to enter! to vote on a meme, simply react to the image with a thumbs-up emoji. we, your humble moderator overlords, will then compile the votes and announce the winner on the day of doom itself: halloween, aka one day before all of your early applications are due. truly, a terrifying day. 

good luck and have fun!

 **moony** (Today at 3:56 PM)  
are you going to enter the meme contest?

 **padfoot** (Today at 3:57 PM) **  
** duh  
i’m literally the meme king

 **moony** (Today at 3:57 PM) **  
** this is yet another instance  
of you claiming something  
with no proof whatsoever 

**padfoot** (Today at 3:58 PM) **  
** i am funny  
i am creative  
i know all the good meme formats  
ergo i am the meme-king-to-be

 **moony** (Today at 3:59 PM)  
sure

 **padfoot** (Today at 4:00 PM) **  
** anyway are you up for a call?  
i’ve got about an hour or two free rn

Remus chews his chapped bottom lip, gnawing at the dried, reddened film. 

They’ve called twice since watching _Simon Snow and the Six White Hares_ together, but only briefly each time—the first time, they’d been cut off by James, who apparently needed Sirius’s assistance unplugging a toilet clogged with, of all things, plastic frogs, and the second time, Sirius had forgotten about a Model UN meeting despite having been the one to actually call the meeting. Both calls had been enjoyable, mostly, besides Remus’s inability to say anything to Sirius without wanting to kick himself in the shin immediately afterwards. And the blushing. Remus could really do without the blushing.

But he likes the calls. And Sirius is fun to talk to! Platonically, of course. Fun to talk to in the way that friends are, just like Remus has fun talking to Lily and Peter and sometimes his mother. 

**moony** (Today at 4:03 PM)  
yeah sure  
just give me a minute

In the bathroom, he rummages around a drawer frantically, searching for the spray bottle his mother usually fills with apple cider vinegar to clean out the tub. After emptying out half the drawer’s contents onto the tiled floor, he finds it behind a bottle of suspiciously orange lotion and a mostly empty tube of aloe vera gel.

Fortunately, the spray mechanism seems mostly intact. Unfortunately, apple cider vinegar smells a lot worse than Remus remembered. Holding his nose, he dumps out the vinegar, washes out the spray bottle, fills it with tap water, and does his best to spritz and pat down the back of his hair. It almost works. 

**moony** (Today at 4:09 PM)  
okay  
i’m ready

Immediately, his headphones fill with the familiar Discord ringtone, and he clicks accept on the call. 

Today, Sirius has his hair tied back in a short ponytail, two loose dark strands framing his face perfectly, and there’s a strange, churning feeling in Remus’s stomach that he really, really hopes is just a side effect of that expired Greek yogurt he ate for breakfast. He’s also uncomfortably aware that the putrid odor of the apple cider vinegar is not only lingering, but threatening to permeate his bedroom entirely.

Sirius raises his eyebrows in greeting, a roguish side-smile on his face. Remus does his best to grin in a way that doesn’t make him look like a tortured victim of school picture day. 

“Your dorm looks different today,” Remus comments. The posters hanging in Sirius’s dorm room—a pristine “Who Watches the Watchmen” still, David Bowie bent over a lipstick-red guitar, a print of a piece of abstract art that might be a Picasso or a Kandinsky—have been replaced with newly white-washed walls, bare and slightly ominous.

“That’s because it’s not my dorm room,” Sirius replies. In his chair, he spins nearly out of frame, a lone hand gesturing at his surroundings—a bed just as bare as the walls, a music stand nearly toppling over from the thick stack of sheet music it holds, a burgundy violin case lying on the hardwood floor, a desk topped with only a glass of murky water. “Home sweet fucking home.” The resentment in his voice is almost tangible. 

“It’s, um, really neat,” Remus says, unable to keep a seed of doubt out of his voice.

“Yeah, my parents kind of fucked up the entire aesthetic when I left for school,” Sirius says, smiling bitterly. “Happens every year. I try to spice it up, and then they get rid of everything.”

“What’d you have up before?”

At this, Sirius’s eyes light up. “Oh, tons of stuff. A bunch of band posters—all custom-made, actually—and some photos I took with James when we went to Paris on a school trip last spring.” He smiles ruefully. “I must’ve spent nearly two hundred dollars on Etsy getting all of it together. It was my own money too.”

“Do you still have the posters?” Remus asks, and Sirius shakes his head.

“Nah. Wouldn’t be a punishment if I did. They probably threw them in the trash months ago.” Sirius shrugs, an air of practiced nonchalance about him. “You get used to it.”

“A punishment?” Remus echoes. “What’re you being punished for?”

“My ‘disrespect and disobedience,’ of course,” Sirius says, air-quoting and rolling his eyes. “My dad wants everything to always be super clean and perfect, and if it’s not—well, you know, one year, before I left for school, I actually superglued some posters to my wall? I thought that’d stop him from taking them down, but no, my dad actually hired someone to remove the entire fucking wall.”

“God, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Honestly, I should’ve given up by now.” Sirius pastes a smile onto his face. “I mean, it’s not like, totally terrible. My bed here is a lot better than the one I have at school, and being back in the city’s nice, you know? Lots of things to do.”

“Yeah.” 

They fall into an awkward silence, and Remus struggles for something to say. How much can he say? How much would seem prying or rude? He watches as Sirius picks at his cuticles, the smile still painted on his face, and feels as though he’s been thrown into one of those dunk tanks without warning, water filling his lungs and gasping desperately for air.

“Uh, so,” Remus starts. “Um.” He glances around his room desperately, and his eyes land on the vintage owl-print calendar his mother bought at a garage sale. “So, um, why are you home anyway? Isn’t it a Thursday? Or, well, a school day?” He winces as he stumbles over the words, but Sirius seems relieved to start up the conversation again. 

“Last time I checked, yes. But we’re out of class for the next few days—October break or some shit, like that’s a thing that actually exists. Isn’t it great, how we get days off to celebrate Christopher Murdering Racist Columbus but not, you know, Yom Kippur or the Mid-Autumn Festival or anything?” Sirius rolls his eyes, then sighs. “The last one might be a _little_ bit of projection.”

“Oh, so, uh, do you usually do anything for the Mid-Autumn Festival? I mean, since it’s almost, or basically, mid-autumn and all. Well, not at school, I guess? But, I mean, do you do anything at home? Like, um, with your family?” 

When Remus learned two years ago that all that survived of Sappho’s poetry was fragments, he felt a disappointment that sunk deep into his bones, one that didn’t go away as he opened Anne Carson’s translation of her poems for the first time and found the book to be practically half-empty, more brackets than words on some pages. When he kept reading, though, he found that it barely mattered that there were only a few poems that extended beyond a single stanza, because there was undeniable beauty in the scattered words anyway—poignant longing and insights that he felt in his core. 

Right now, the beginning of fragment 94 appears in his mind, as clear as day:

_I simply want to be dead._

Sirius, ever the graceful one, saves him. “Kind of? It was a bigger deal when Reg and I were younger. We used to get these lotus mooncakes in bulk—just the kind from Costco, but my mom really liked them because they were imported from Taiwan, which she said made them more authentic.” He smiles wistfully. “One time—I think after I read somewhere, probably in National Geographic or something, that people in China celebrated by lighting up lanterns and writing riddles on them—I even got Reg to fold these little red paper lanterns with me, and we hung them on our backpacks for ages.”

“That sounds great,” Remus says softly.

“Yeah, it was. Well, besides when I’d pick out the duck egg yolks from the mooncakes because I didn’t like how they tasted, and then my dad would yell at me for wasting food and smash the rest of the mooncakes and tell my mom to never buy them again because they were ‘obviously a waste of money anyway’ and I needed to learn a lesson about gratitude. That wasn’t as fun.” And just like that, the artificial smile is back on Sirius’s face again. 

“I’m really sorry about your dad.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t really see him that much, since, you know, boarding school and all that, and he works pretty late. He’s just an asshole. I honestly can’t remember a time when he wasn’t one. It’s in his DNA or something—he got the brown eyes gene, the Type O blood gene, and the asshole gene.” 

Involuntarily, Remus laughs, and Sirius beams back at him, that brilliant, broad smile that could move worlds and stop shooting stars in their tracks. 

“So do you have any plans, you know, for what you’re going to do over the break, since you’re at home and all? Well, I guess you’re on the break already—you know what I mean.”

“Yeah! James lives up in Boston, but I might call up Hestia—Emmy’s girlfriend, she goes to Columbia—and see if she or any of her friends are free. I need to get some stuff done before then, but—God, fuck, sorry, one second.” Sirius half-shuts the lid of his laptop and slips his headset off his ears, setting it on his desk. Distantly, Remus hears him pad out of the room, his footsteps growing softer by the second.

For one, two, nearly ten minutes, there’s silence. Remus bites his bottom lip again, wondering if he should just hang up. After a moment of contemplation, he decides against it and opens up a new tab in Chrome instead. He scrolls mindlessly through Reddit, upvoting posts in r/relationship_advice with titles like “My husband (37M) left me seven months ago after I (24F) found out we were pregnant but finally came home last week, should I take him back?”

Then, abruptly, there’s the screeching sound of static, and a moment later, voices cut in. With a start, Remus realizes that the headset must have come unplugged.

The voices are speaking—almost shouting, really—to each other in Mandarin. One is recognizably Sirius’s; the other, a female one, must be his mother’s.

“—just give me one minute, God, please!” A chair scrapes loudly across the floor.

Sirius’s mother says something in Mandarin, her tone dancing on the edge of a cliff.

“Please.” Sirius is frantic now, his breaths shallow and his voice catching in his throat. “Please, just shut up for a second, please? God, please, I can’t think, I can’t, I just need to—” 

“You don’t tell _me_ to shut up!” Her voice is harsh, threatening to bubble over with rage. _“Shut up? Shut up?_ Not me! No, you _shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!”_

In the split-second of silence that follows, Remus feels his breath seize. Yes, he should—he needs to—hang up, but what if hanging up puts Sirius in harm’s way, or something even worse? He bites the ragged edges of his fingernails, the scraping of his teeth echoing in his skull. 

Then, suddenly, he hears a crash—something heavy, something hard, falling to the floor of Sirius’s bedroom. Something metallic, maybe, if the ringing in his ears is anything to go by, but maybe that’s just Remus hoping that Sirius isn’t hurt, hasn’t been slapped or punched or shoved through a wall. 

Remus holds his breath, as though he’s waiting for a guillotine to drop and slice his head clean off—but then, just as quickly as it came, the tension disappears. 

Over the unplugged headset, he can hear the ragged heaving of tired lungs and quiet, apologetic muttering in Mandarin. The voices are almost grainy now, as though they’ve been filtered through an ashtray. One set of footsteps grows softer and more distant until it’s completely gone, and a few moments later, Sirius blinks into view again.

He doesn’t look visibly hurt, at least, no bruises or reddening marks, and Remus lets out a sigh of relief. “Um, are—are you okay?” Remus asks tentatively.

“What? Oh, yeah, yeah,” Sirius says distantly. “Yeah, no, I just—had to do something. Sorry it took so long.”

With a start, Remus realizes that Sirius probably doesn’t know that the headset’s cord had come loose. “I’m really sorry, but, um. Your headset—it was—”

“Oh, fuck.” Sirius drops his head into his hands, and for a moment, Remus thinks that this is it—Sirius will hang up and never talk to him again, and to be honest, he deserves it. He should have just left the call when Sirius did. He should never have stayed on the line for so long, invaded his privacy so blatantly. But then Sirius looks up again, and though his mouth is set in a grim line, he doesn’t look angry or, for that matter, betrayed. “How much did you hear?”

“Uh, just the end of it. Um, is your mom usually so—”

“Only sometimes,” Sirius says hastily. “She’s just—she’s really frustrated today. She’s not always like this.”

“Are you—are you hurt? And what happened?”

“No, I’m not hurt,” Sirius says, shaking his head. “She just knocked over my music stand—accidentally. She didn’t mean it. She didn’t.” Picking at his cuticles, he sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than Remus. “And—oh, God, how do I even explain this? Okay, have you ever heard of Wenxuecity?”

“Uh, sorry. I don’t think I have.”

“It’s this Chinese aggregator site with like, links to news articles and op-eds and blogs and comment sections and shit. Anyway, my mom—she’s on it all the time, and she writes stuff on it sometimes, I guess, opinions and blog posts. And she wrote about Tiananmen once—you know what that is, yeah?—and it got taken down, because, you know, Chinese site and fucking censorship and all. And God, this sounds so _stupid,_ but now she thinks the Chinese government is after us and trying to monitor us through our WiFi.” Sirius lets out a short, bitter laugh. “So every time the Internet is even remotely shitty or her data cuts out, she gets super paranoid, thinks someone’s trying to hack in, and decides she needs to reset the whole fucking network. So that’s what happened today. I was trying to just, you know, convince her it’d be fine this _one_ time, or at least hook my laptop up to a hotspot or something, but, well. You can see what happened.”

“I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s fine. It’s not usually like this, I swear. Please don’t worry about it,” Sirius says. He takes a long sip from the glass of water. “Anyway, uh, back to before—oh, God, what were we talking about again?”

“Uh, Hestia, I think?”

“Right, yeah, Hestia. Yeah, I’ll try to hang out with her if I can, after I finish my homework and stuff. And after I practice—I have a violin lesson in like, two days, and the Saint-Saens is still a fucking disaster,” Sirius says, waving a hand in the air. 

“I’m sure it’s not,” Remus says earnestly. “I know I don’t play violin, but I can tell that you’re really, really good.” 

“Nah,” Sirius replies, but there’s the faintest hint of a blush on his cheeks, dusty rose and warming. “Hey, uh, I don’t know if you’re interested, but if you want, you could listen to me practice? Obviously, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, and I’m sure you have better things to do—”

“I’d love to,” Remus says, and Sirius smiles at him weakly.

Even through the tinny Discord speakers, Sirius sounds beautiful on the violin. The notes are rich and vibrant, and the accents are strong and bold. Even as his fingers slide up the neck of the violin, playing notes so high they sound like the calls of morning birds, no mistakes are made. With his eyes fixed in deep concentration on the sheet music, Sirius looks like the personification of the word “virtuoso.”

Out of the corner of his eye, though, Remus can see that Sirius’s right hand, grasping his rosin-coated bow, is trembling.

* * *

“So, thoughts on Batgirl?”

“Hm?”

“Batgirl,” Lily says, lifting a mascara wand to her eyelashes. Today, her long hair’s been meticulously pinned up and hidden under a pale blue scarf, and her eyes are lined with kohl. Despite opening night of the fall musical being more than a month away, it’s never too early to start preparing for dress rehearsals, at least according to Lily. 

“I thought you were playing Cinderella, not Batgirl,” Remus quips, and Lily rolls her eyes. 

“For Halloween,” she clarifies. “You know, Halloween? The holiday that’s three weeks away?”

“Lily, given that I’m too old to go trick-or-treating, I literally couldn't care less about Halloween,” Remus replies. 

“There’s stuff to do besides trick-or-treat!”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Well, there’s dances, and there’s parties, and—”

“And I’m getting invited to those?” Remus cocks an eyebrow, and Lily sighs.

“Fine, you don’t have to do anything for Halloween, but _I’m_ going to. Anyway, Hogwarts is having a Halloween dance, and Marley’s going to go as Harley Quinn, so I thought that dressing up as Batgirl might be nice, you know? We could do a theme and all.” Lily sets down the mascara wand and picks up a tube of garnet-red lipstick, pursing her lips. 

“Yeah.”

“And Batgirl’s definitely a badass. But I really wish there were more female superheroes and supervillains in general, you know? I mean, Harley’s having a real renaissance, but what about everyone else?” Lily places the lipstick back in her floral makeup bag, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a tissue.

“Mhm.” Truthfully, even when Remus _was_ the right age for trick-or-treating, he didn’t enjoy it very much. There was something terrifying in knocking on the door of a complete stranger and expecting them to not only be polite, but to actively be helpful and give you candy. 

And then there was the expectation of saying “trick or treat,” with the non-zero chance that you would stumble over those three words and look like a complete idiot, and there were the animatronic skeletons that some people hung in front of their houses and could startle you so badly that you actually screamed, and there were the people who expected you to _actually tell a joke or do a trick_ in order to receive candy in the first place.

So Halloween has never been on his list of favorite holidays. Anyway, if he wanted to eat a ton of candy and wake up the next morning with a sugar hangover, he would just go to CVS and buy a family-size bag of M&Ms.

“Or maybe I shouldn’t go as Batgirl? I heard Sev was going to go as Batman, and there’s some not-so-good implications there, you know, from _The_ _Killing Joke_ and all that.”

“Yeah.” He wonders how Sirius feels about Halloween. He probably likes it—he was going to enter the Halloween meme contest, after all. Is trick-or-treating even a thing in New York City? He pictures Sirius weaving through taxis and crowds of pedestrians, going door to door—apartment door to door, maybe? 

“Would it be a total cop-out to go as Cinderella? I mean, I have the costume already.” 

“Mhm.” Or would Sirius have even been allowed to trick-or-treat at all? Just thinking of the crashing of that music stand, the way it had rung out as it hit the ground, makes Remus wince. Maybe Sirius’s parents would have forced him to stay home and watch through the windows as laughter and cheer filled the nighttime air. 

“Actually, I’m going to go as the Thing. It’s decided. I’m going to get a bunch of garbage bags and make them into a costume, and I’m going to call myself the Thing. That’ll be amazing, right?”

“Yeah.” God, now he’s thinking about the way Sirius had been shaking again, the trembling of his hand almost imperceptible, like he was trying to hide it. Like he didn’t want to show that he was scared.

“Okay, now I know you’re not listening to me. Remus? Remus!” Lily taps on her laptop screen with the tube of mascara, startling Remus out of his thoughts.

“What? Yeah?”

“Were you listening to that at all?”

“Sorry,” Remus says sheepishly. “There’s just a lot on my mind right now. College apps and all that. So, um—you want to go as Batgirl? But Sev’s going to be Batman, which you don’t like?” 

“That was five minutes ago,” Lily replies, rolling her eyes, but she smiles at him fondly. “But yeah, basically. Because in the movie version of _The Killing Joke,_ Batgirl and Batman kind of hook up—which is super weird and unnecessary, since he’s in a position of power over her, and the whole movie is honestly horrifically misogynistic, but anyway—and I don’t know, I’m scared Sev will take it the wrong way.”

“Don’t let it matter,” Remus says firmly. “Don’t let him have that kind of power over you. If you want to be Batgirl, be Batgirl. Who cares what he says?”

“Maybe,” Lily says, retying the scarf around her head. “But if he starts messaging me about how we should get back together and are ‘meant to be’ again, I’m blaming you.”

“If that happens, I’ll take responsibility for it,” Remus replies. “Pinky swear. Besides, if you switch your costume, there’s always the chance that you’ll end up matching with someone even worse, like Potter.”

“No, I’m not going to match with Potter. He and Black are going as Captain America and Iron Man, but not in costume. Apparently, they’re dressing up like the civilian versions of them? I don’t have any idea how anyone’s going to recognize them like that, honestly,” Lily says absentmindedly.

“Maybe they’ll wear name tags? Wait, how do you even know what Potter’s going as?” Remus asks, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. 

“We’ve been talking,” Lily says simply. She picks up a case of dark rose blush, dabbing the color onto her cheekbones with a fine-haired brush. 

“Talking?”

“Just, you know, after prefect rounds and stuff.” Lily shrugs airily. “No big deal.” 

“Lily Maria, have you become _friends_ with Potter?”

“No! God, no way.”

“But you don’t think he’s trying to trick you into dating him and then humiliate you anymore?”

Lily rolls her eyes. “Remus, that was just a _theory.”_

“A theory you drew up a whole flow chart for.”

“Look, we’re not friends,” Lily says, her tone decisive. “We just talk about classes and do homework together sometimes. It’s nothing more than that.”

“Sure.”

“I promise.” She puts down the brush, examining herself in a small, hand-held mirror. “Okay, Remus, how do I look?”

“Like a princess.”

“You always say the nicest things,” Lily smiles. 

* * *

After two weeks of repeatedly cancelled and rescheduled plans, Peter’s finally come over to Remus’s house, probably for the first time in over a year. Just like Remus predicted to his mother, it’s basically the same as any other night they play Injustice or Smash together, except this time, they’re sitting in the same room and using the same game console. 

On screen, Remus tries his hardest to maneuver his Pikachu away from Peter’s Donkey Kong, groaning when Peter lands a hit and Pikachu is nearly knocked off the stage.

“When did you get so good at this?” Remus complains.

“The brass section hosts weekly game nights now,” Peter replies. “The trumpets play a lot of Smash.” 

“Right, of course they do.” For a split second, Remus tears his eyes away from the TV to roll up his sleeves. Predictably, in that same second, Peter manages to land a kill confirm combo.

“Hell yeah!” Peter pumps his fist, looking like the triumphant protagonist of a cheesy feel-good 80s movie. 

“Rematch,” Remus says.

“Won’t change anything, but sure,” Peter shrugs. He sets his controller down on the coffee table, taking a swig from his water bottle. “By the way, do you have any plans on Halloween?”

“You know I don’t have plans on Halloween. I don’t have plans ever,” Remus responds. 

“Fantastic. Remus, how would you like to go to the party of the century?” Peter beams. He looks as though he’s a second away from pulling out a party hat and blowing streamers. 

Remus fixes him with a stare. “Um, what?”

“The party of the century!” Peter repeats cheerfully. 

“I’m sorry, I think I was just transported to an alternate dimension, because you just asked me to go to a _party_ with you.” Remus places his controller next to Peter’s and leans back on the leather couch, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“You have not, in fact, been transported to an alternate dimension,” Peter says. “Look, Ludo Bagman’s having a Halloween party at his house—”

“Who the fuck is Ludo Bagman?”

“Ludo Bagman? Soccer captain Ludo Bagman? Homecoming king Ludo Bagman? Recruited by USC Ludo Bagman?” Peter rattles off a long list of accolades, most of which make less sense to Remus than James Joyce’s _Ulysses._

“Peter, again, I don’t go to your school. I have no idea who Ludo Bagman is.”

“Okay, all you have to know is that Ludo Bagman’s _big._ He’s one of the most popular guys in school, and Remus, he lives in a _mansion.”_

“So does Dick Cheney, and I don’t want to go to his house for a party.” 

Peter lets out a far too dramatic sigh. “Look, it’ll be fun. I talked to Fabian—”

“Fabian?” Remus stares at Peter blankly. 

“Fabian Prewett? The drum major? Anyway, I’m friends with Fabian—well, sort of friends with him, at least—and Fabian’s brother, Gideon, is friends with Ludo, so I managed to get discounted tickets to Ludo’s party—”

“What kind of party has _tickets?_ What, is he holding it at a fucking nightclub?”

“I think it’s just at his house?” Peter cocks his head. “Look, there’s a limited supply of tickets, so it’s a _huge_ deal that I managed to get them for us. I even paid for yours already. It’s going to be amazing, I swear. I mean, I’ve never been to one of Ludo’s parties before, but I’ve heard that they’re _insane._ They’re like something out of _The Great Gatsby._ Anyone who’s anyone is going to be there.”

Very rarely does Remus feel grateful for missing out on the traditional high school experience. Usually, it’s when he hears accounts of rampant bullying on the news, or he realizes that going to a regular high school would require him to wear something besides flannel pajama pants to class. This is one of those times. Frustrated, he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, Peter, be honest. Why do you want me to go with you? And please, please don’t say some bullshit about how I should ‘get out there and meet people.’ because, like I’ve said, I literally do not know who any of these people are.”

“You need to make the most out of—”

“Make the most out of high school? Peter, all of high school for me has been a fucking _screen._ Come on, just tell me. Why the fuck are you inviting _me_ to a party?”

Peter sighs. “Fine. Do you remember Mary?”

“Mary, Queen of Scots? Mary Poppins? You’re going to need to be more specific here.”

“Mary Macdonald,” Peter says, clearly exasperated, as if the name is supposed to ring a bell. 

“Still don’t know who that is.”

“Mary? Color Guard Mary?” Peter clarifies, and suddenly, a blurry image forms in Remus’s mind—warm brown skin, curly hair, color guard captain, and the rare kind of person who can pull off a bright yellow top, at least from the one Instagram photo he’s seen of her. 

“Right, Color Guard Mary. What about Color Guard Mary?”

“What about—” Peter gives Remus a dumbfounded look. “What about Color Guard Mary? Uh, only that she’s the prettiest person in the entire fucking world?”

“Should I be offended?”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Remus, Mary’s—she’s _amazing._ She’s smart, and she’s talented, and God, she’s so pretty, and she’s totally out of my league, but—”

“Okay, okay. You have a crush on her. I get the point,” Remus says, holding up his hand. Truthfully, going by the multitude of e-girls Peter follows on Instagram, Remus would have expected him to be infatuated with someone less wholesome. At least Mary doesn’t seem like the type of person to screenshot their DMs and send them to a group chat. “But again, I don’t see what she has to do with—well, anything.”

“Okay, so remember the peer mentorship program I’m part of?” Peter asks, taking another long sip of water. 

“I think so? That’s the thing where you have weekly meetings with freshmen and tell them why it’s a bad idea to stick a pencil in an electrical socket, right?”

Peter huffs. “Yes, but you don’t have to say it like that. Anyway, one of the freshmen in my peer group got tickets to the party too, which is the problem. I don’t even know how they got the ticket, honestly, since Ludo  _ hates  _ freshmen, but that’s beside the point. Technically, I’m supposed to be someone who’s always there for them even outside of our peer meetings, which includes the Halloween party, since their parents obviously won’t be there. But Mary’s also going to the party, and I barely see her outside of school or marching band practice, and—”

“And you’d rather spend your time trying to convince Mary to date you than shepherding a freshman,” Remus finishes, the realization slowly dawning over him. “You care enough about that freshman to not want them to die of alcohol poisoning, but you also don’t want to be the one actually making sure they’re not dying of alcohol poisoning, so you want me to do that instead.”

Peter at least has the decency to look sheepish. “Look, it wouldn’t be that bad. Tonks—that’s the freshman—is great. They tell super funny jokes. Oh, man, definitely ask them to tell you that story about their grandma and the octopus.”

“I won’t ask them to tell me that story, because they’re still a freshman I’ve never met and I really don’t want to spend my Halloween babysitting them,” Remus replies—even if his current plans for Halloween night are eating cookie dough ice cream out of the carton and listening to Car Seat Headrest’s  _ Twin Fantasy  _ on repeat. “Besides, I still need to finish writing my college essays.”

Peter cocks his head. “I thought you were done with those? Remember, you texted me the other day about how you were super relieved to finally be done with your Brown essays?”

He knew he shouldn’t have done that. “I still have to write my other ones. You know, for Stanford and Wesleyan and stuff.”

“You have _months_ to write those, Remus,” Peter says, sighing. “At this rate, you’ll be done by December first.”

“No, I won’t.” Because he’ll actually be done by November twentieth, but Peter doesn’t have to know that. “Anyway, none of that matters, since it’s not like my mom’s going to let me go.” Remus picks up his controller again, moving to unpause the game, but less than a second later, Peter repauses it.

“I mean, your mom’s home, right?” Peter asks, and Remus nods warily. “Then let’s ask her right now!”

“Peter—” Remus tries to clamp a hand over Peter’s mouth, but Peter moves too quickly for him.

“Mrs. Lupin? Could you come downstairs for a minute?” Peter calls loudly, and Remus slaps a hand to his forehead, praying that his mother’s miraculously managed to not hear Peter’s shouts. Of course, he’s not that lucky for that. 

“Just a second!” his mother calls back. Less than a minute later, she’s downstairs, a broad smile on her face. “What can I do for you?”

“Your hair looks very nice today, Mrs. Lupin,” Peter says, and Remus has to bodily resist the urge to vomit. 

“Why, thank you, Peter,” she replies. “You’re such a polite young man.”

Peter beams. Remus wonders if there’s any expression in the universe that can encompass the degree to which Peter is not, in fact, a polite young man. 

“So, Mrs. Lupin, there’s going to be a Halloween party hosted by one of my friends in a few weeks. I invited Remus to come along, but he’s worried that you won’t let him go,” Peter says, lying through his teeth. 

“Remus, why on Earth would you think that? Of course I’d let you go! You know, I was just telling him the other day that he needs to get out of the house more,” his mother replies, looking at Peter conspiratorially. She rolls her eyes fondly. “Remus worries too much.”

“He does,” Peter says, also rolling his eyes. “He’s a good friend, though.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” his mother says, smiling warmly. “Well, is that all?”

“Yep! Thanks for your help, Mrs. Lupin!”

The moment his mother leaves the room, Remus breathes in and out deeply, resisting the temptation to throttle Peter. “Peter Pettigrew, you conniving little shit.”

Peter shrugs dispassionately. “I did what I had to do.”

“I’m still not going,” Remus says. “You can’t make me.”

“Your mom knows about the party now, and if you don’t go, she’s going to keep bugging you about it,” Peter counters. The worst part is that Remus knows that Peter’s right—if he doesn’t go, his mother will ask him every single day about why he turned down the chance to “get out there and socialize.” And then she’s going to start talking about signing him up for pottery classes again or bringing him to her book club meetings, and there are very few things that are worse than that. 

“I’m not going.”

“I’ll pay you,” Peter says. 

“Still no.” Remus tries to pick up his controller again, but Peter blocks him. 

“Come on,” Peter begs. “This might be my only chance with Mary—well, ever. It would mean a lot to me. I’ll owe you forever, I swear. Please?”

Remus sighs. “A hundred dollars.”

“Sixty. I paid for your ticket already, remember?”

“A ticket I didn’t ask for. Eighty.”

“Seventy and 1350 Riot Points,” Peter offers. 

“Deal,” Remus replies. Looking at Peter’s wide smile, he has the familiar feeling that this is a decision he’s going to regret. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update! college classes + extracurriculars are taking up a lot of my time, so updates will probably be a bit more sporadic—maybe every other week instead of every week.
> 
> thanks for reading! kudos + comments fuel me! <3


	8. october ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius goes to a Model UN conference, Remus meets Marlene, and some truths are revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there’s a few brief mentions of model united nations, which i’ll refer to in-fic as model un or mun. all you need to know about model un is that it’s roleplaying as nations ft. debate, and there are awards, including a best delegate award, at the end.

**r/collegeadmissions**  
Posted by u/thirtysevenprime 7 hours ago | 3.2k points

**I feel like I wasted my time in high school**

Yeah, I joined all the “right” clubs. I worked my way up to become the SciOly captain. I did research at a T20 college and got a recommendation from my mentor. I competed in debate at the national level. 

I took the hardest classes I could. I slept four hours a night my junior year, struggling to finish my homework for my six AP classes. 

I have good grades. I have good test scores. I think my teachers like me. 

But I feel like I wasted my time in high school. What was this all for? 

For my college apps, I tell myself. All for that. But nothing’s guaranteed still—all I did was tick the right boxes. And they’re ticked. I fulfill the criteria for a competitive candidate at an Ivy, at Stanford, at MIT. But almost everyone applying is a competitive candidate. Almost everyone applying has done incredible things. Almost everyone applying has an amazing story. Who’s to say that the admissions officers will take me over everyone else applying?

And if they don’t—well, what was this all for?

I have a group of friends, sure, but are we really friends? We eat lunch together, and we talk about the homework that was assigned last night, but we don’t hang out on the weekends or anything. Why? We’re all too busy.

I’ve had a crush on the same girl since ninth grade. She’s sweet, funny, and gorgeous. We’re friendly, and she might even like me back. But I still haven’t asked her out, because I know I don’t have time for a relationship. 

When I was in middle school, I loved watching those TV shows and movies about high school. The movies told me that high school would be fun parties and romance and friends for life. They told me that high school would be filled with drama, yes, but also laughter and moments of levity. They told me that I’d have a good time.

Did I have a good time? No. Did I have a bad time? Also no. My time in high school has been, to be honest, like living in a black hole. Every day is just going through the motions, one step forward, on and on and on. Until I reach the end—until I get the reward, an acceptance letter from my dream schools. 

But what if there is no reward? What if I get to the end, and there’s nothing there? What then? 

Would it all have been for nothing? What was this all for?

 **moony** (Today at 11:43 AM)  
[ https://www.reddit.com/r/collegeadmissions/comments/k8ix2j/i_feel_like_i_wasted_my_time_in_high_school/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3  
](https://www.reddit.com/r/collegeadmissions/comments/k8ix2j/i_feel_like_i_wasted_my_time_in_high_school/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)have you seen this reddit post?

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:44 AM)  
i’ll check it out  
wow  
big oof for this guy  
it’s slightly relatable i guess? not completely so  
like i enjoyed some of high school?  
i do agree that it always feels like there’s not enough time, and i’ve definitely pulled too many all-nighters to finish my homework and stuff  
but at the same time i’ve made some pretty good friends  
there’s james and marlene, and at least i think we’re friends  
and we’ve had good times together

 **moony** (Today at 11:46 AM)  
that makes sense

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:48 AM)  
HI MOONY

 **moony** (Today at 11:48 AM)  
uh hi sirius?  
we’re already talking?

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:48 AM)  
I’m not Sirius  
I’m James!!  
Nice to finally meet the person Sirius keeps talking to WHILE WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING

 **moony** (Today at 11:49 AM)  
oh  
i’m sorry

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:49 AM)  
Nah it’s his fault not yours  
Because Sirius clearly doesn’t understand the importance of representing the Federation of Russia in SPECPOL and ASDFGklmnbvcghjkl;’  
ugh sorry about that  
james is an asshole and stole my phone from me  
i managed to get it back and i’ve also now relocated to the other side of the table

 **moony** (Today at 11:51 AM)  
oh  
don’t worry about it  
also he said you’re supposed to be working?

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:52 AM)  
ehh  
we’re at a model un conference at mit right now  
it’s lunch so like  
all the annoyingly intense mun kids (hint: james) are drafting working papers and stuff

 **moony** (Today at 11:52 AM)  
oh  
wait shouldn’t you be doing that too  
since you’re like the vp of model un and all

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:53 AM)  
and james is the president and my mun partner  
so he can type up ways to revise the un convention on the law of the sea with regards to the south china sea crisis all he wants  
but i for one am going to enjoy my shitty free salami and american cheese sandwich and talk to you

 **moony** (Today at 11:54 AM)  
oh okay

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:55 AM)  
anyway  
what about you?  
re: the reddit post you sent me  
how do you feel about it?

 **moony** (Today at 11:56 AM)  
i mean  
given that i’m homeschooled  
it’s not like i could choose to have that kind of a social life  
even if i had time to  
i guess i have like  
one friend?  
but he has other friends too  
and i can’t expect him to hang out with me over them  
when i don’t know any of them  
so i didn’t even really have a high school experience to miss out on

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:01 PM)  
:( i’m sorry  
if it makes you feel better, i do relate to the second part of the post  
where he talked about romance and never making a move

 **moony** (Today at 12:02 PM)  
wait how?  
are people at your school blind or something?

Mouth, insert foot. Remus wonders if there’s a cure for compulsive idiocy.

 **padfoot** (Today at 12:03 PM)  
i mean being gay and closeted isn’t exactly conducive to real, meaningful romantic relationships

 **moony** (Today at 12:04 PM)  
i’m sorry 

**padfoot** (Today at 12:05 PM)  
it’s fine, honestly  
okay lunch is over, so i have to get back to committee  
but call you later? i’ll have some time tonight probably

 **moony** (Today at 12:06 PM)  
sounds good

Remus closes out of Discord, and then, with a sigh, pulls up the Common App website.

Realistically, he should turn in his Brown application. He’s been procrastinating on doing so for days—every single afternoon, he opens the Common App website, reads through his application, and then, right before he clicks the submit button, he panics and closes out of the tab.

But he has less than a week before it’s due for real, and he’s read horror stories on Reddit about the Common App crashing at 11:59 PM on November first. It’ll be better if he does it now, especially since he’s read over every single one of his essays at least fifteen times, sent them to far too many people for editing—Sirius, his English teacher, last year’s English teacher, a random Brown undergrad from the Discord server, and, in a brief moment of panic, one high school junior who claimed to be “an amazing writer”—and has his mother’s glinting credit card on his table, its digits ready to be typed into the payment box. 

But the prospect of actually submitting his application is daunting—no, absolutely terrifying. Under the table, his knee is bouncing uncontrollably, and his hands are shaking more than a jello salad in an earthquake. If this is how he feels now, he doesn’t even want to think about how he’ll survive when it actually comes time for him to open decisions. 

He opens up his Brown application again, scanning his essays for stray typos one last time.

_The waiting room’s fluorescent lights are harsh and unforgiving. The faces of my mother and father are as unreadable as stone, my mother staring straight ahead, digging her fingernails into her palm…_

_True comfort is long, sleepless nights spent under the covers of my bed, scrolling through Submittable entries in search of the best poetry to publish in the next edition of The Quibbler…_

_There is nothing more beautiful to me than the written word—the way stories and dreams and realizations can bloom from a single sentence. Brown’s Open Curriculum will give me the ability to fulfill my dreams of becoming the next Andrew Sean Greer or David Ebershoff through classes like “Terrible Births: the Novel out of Romanticism,” where I’ll combine my love of the romantic and poetic with an investigation of the works of Shelley…_

_Am I funny? I honestly don’t think so, but the good thing is, like it or not, I’m bringing my humor to Brown—to the Brown Noser, to be exact…_

_For two weeks every April, I wake up at four in the morning. Without fail, there will still be frost on my windowpanes and cold dew on the grass when I leave the house, but I ignore that. Helping stock food at the local food pantry is my objective, and neither rain or snow can stop me from fulfilling it…_

He removes a comma. Then, rereading the sentence, he puts it back. He chews at his bottom lip, debating between a semicolon and an em-dash. For a brief moment, he considers deleting his Common App essay entirely and writing a new essay about his love of chocolate-chip cookies, or maybe how _Phineas and Ferb_ changed his life. 

Nope, that’s a sign that he needs to suck it up, take a deep breath, and just submit. 

Swallowing, he scrolls through the PDF of his application, checks off the application affirmations, and, closing his eyes tightly, clicks on the submit button. Rainbow confetti fills the screen, but somehow, it feels more like a death knell than a congratulations. 

He doesn’t have control over any of this anymore—whatever happens to his application, whether it’s accepted, denied, or deferred, won’t be something he can change. It’s as though he’s let go of a message in a bottle, and no matter how hard he tries to find it again, to unravel it and tear it apart, he won’t be able to. The bottle will keep bobbing along on the deep blue waves, farther and farther away with each passing second, and Remus is stuck on the sandy beach, unable to do anything but hope. 

No. He can’t keep thinking like that. He won’t let himself, or he’ll drive himself insane before the month is even over. 

Instead, he makes a valiant effort at doing his AP Literature homework—reading and analyzing “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Camus. Unfortunately, he quickly runs into two problems: one, Remus is fairly certain that he still doesn’t understand the concept of absurdism, and two, at no other moment has Remus ever felt more like Sisyphus on the ascent. 

All his life, he’s been pushing the boulder up the hill. He’s spent sleepless nights working towards this one thing, this one goal that will finally make his father slightly proud, that will lead Remus to success, maybe even to happiness. And he’s so close to the top, now, and the boulder can go either way. It can finally go over the top, or it can come crashing down, and Remus will be down at the bottom of the hill again, gazing up.

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy,” Camus writes, but Remus can’t find the joy in descending down the hill. Maybe Sisyphus, condemned to his fate for all eternity, can do that, but Remus can’t. Remus has the space of a few months. After that, all of this will be over. 

He wants to push the boulder over. He wants to see the boulder tumble over the other side, and Remus will be at the top of the hill, triumphant. He’ll look out onto the world, finally, finally opening for him. That will be happiness for Remus—not loping down the hill to push the boulder up again. 

Remus knows what it is like to strive, to suffer, to fight. He spent three years of his life doing that in a hospital, and for once, he doesn’t want to have to do that. He wants it all to work out.

And he has two months before he’ll know if Brown can do that for him. Two achingly long months of wanting and dreaming and hoping.

And he’s back to that again. Wonderful. 

For once, the universe takes pity on him, and not even a moment later, Sirius is calling him on Discord. 

“Hi, how’re you doing, and can you listen to this clause and tell me if it makes sense?” The words come out of Sirius’s mouth in a rush, and his voice is slightly raspy, as if he’s been speaking all day and ran out of water four hours ago. He’s wearing a suit jacket over a half-unbuttoned white dress shirt, and, inexplicably, he’s lying on his stomach on the carpeted hotel room floor. 

“Uh, sure? Also, why are you on the floor?”

“Great, thanks. I need to finish this section before the next committee session, which is in—” Sirius checks his watch. “—forty-five minutes. Also, I work better when I’m on the floor. It helps me clear my mind.”

“I’ve never heard of that before,” Remus replies dubiously. 

“It totally works. This is how I write all my essays for school. I lie on the floor, and the ideas just come to me.”

“Isn’t it uncomfortable?” The carpet is a putrid green, and Remus would bet good money that it feels just as scratchy as it looks. 

“Nah. You get used to it after a while. Anyway—” Sirius clears his throat. “Noting the urgency of the conflict in the South China Sea and acknowledging the failure of effective channels of communication in the past, the PRONGS Plan’s proposed resolution creates a new forum for multilateral negotiations involving all parties with interests in this particular regional conflict.” 

“The PRONGS Plan?”

“James’s idea. Protect, Reform, Organize, Negotiate, Guide, Strategize.” Remus raises his eyebrows, and Sirius sighs. “Look, all plans in Model UN have stupid names. It’s just how it works. At least the acronym our bloc came up with rolls off the tongue easily, and that’s all that matters.” 

“Sure. I think the clause makes sense, though,” Remus says. 

“Wonderful. Okay, just one second—” Sirius’s fingers fly across the keyboard, typing frantically. “Okay, done. Sorry about that. I’m done with Model UN stuff for now. Tell me about your day. How’s it going?”

“Well, I finally turned in my Brown application.” After more than two hours of worrying and extreme indecision. 

“Wait, that’s amazing!” Sirius exclaims, sounding genuine. “I still haven’t sent in my Yale app. Honestly, I wish I could get away with never sending it in, but our guidance counselors actually monitor all of our applications and call us in on October thirtieth if we haven’t sent them in by then.”

“That seems kind of overbearing?”

“Yeah, it is, but it’s for the people who procrastinate until the last minute to write their essays,” Sirius replies. “Some people need it.”

“True.” All Remus has to do to know that is look at Reddit. 

“Anyway, want a hotel room tour? I mean, there’s not really anything here, but maybe it’d be cool?” Sirius shrugs. “What do you want to do?”

“A tour would be cool.”

“Great.” Sirius picks up his laptop, turning it around so Remus can see the hotel room, in all of its 18 foot by 18 foot glory. “Okay, so there’s my bed. You can tell it’s mine and not James’s because it’s a hundred times cooler.”

“Sure,” Remus says, rolling his eyes. To be honest, it looks like every other hotel room bed Remus has ever seen—sheets pulled tight over the sides, a comforter that’s far too light and far too hot at the same time, oversized white pillows—save for a galaxy-patterned pillow that must be Sirius’s.

“Are you rolling your eyes?” Sirius turns the laptop around, and Remus smiles innocently.  
  
“I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Sure.” Sirius spins the laptop around again. “There’s the window. We have a wonderful view of the Marriott parking lot.”

“Absolutely stunning.”

“It is, isn’t it? Okay, right there is an armchair. It’s an armchair. And over there is James’s bed.” Sirius turns the laptop to face a second bed with huge pillows, but it’s far messier than Sirius’s—half of the comforter is hanging off the bed, two pillows have fallen on the floor, and there’s at least five MIT t-shirts and sweatshirts strewn over it.

“That’s, uh, a lot of MIT merch,” Remus says delicately. He doesn’t even want to think about how much they must have cost. 

“Yeah, I bet you can tell where he applied early, right? He keeps getting new ones, EVEN THOUGH HE KNOWS THAT MIT DOESN’T TRACK DEMONSTRATED INTEREST, RIGHT, JAMES?” Sirius shouts. He cups a hand to his ear for a moment, as if he’s waiting for a reply. “Okay, yeah, James definitely isn’t in the bathroom. I thought he might be for a second, but I guess he’s still hanging out in Benjy's room.”

“Benjy?”

“The Republic of India,” Sirius replies promptly. Remus gives him a blank stare. “Right, you don’t do Model UN. We call people by the names of the countries they’re representing. Benjy goes to Horace Mann. We met him six hours ago, and he’s part of our bloc now. He and James are trying to get more signatories for our working paper right now, I think.”

“I understood about half of that, but it’s fine,” Remus replies. “So, is there anything else you wanted to show me?”

“Unless you really want to see the bathroom—you don’t, by the way, James has an ungodly amount of hair products, and he leaves them fucking everywhere—not really.” Sirius slides into the armchair. “Okay, so, another thing I wanted to talk about: what the hell is up with—” A knock sounds on Sirius’s hotel room, and Sirius sighs. “Fuck, one second.”

The knock comes again, louder this time. “I’m coming!” Sirius calls. He looks at Remus apologetically. “Sorry, hopefully, this’ll be quick.” He steps out of view, and moments later, Remus can hear hushed murmurs.

Finally, Sirius says, just barely audible to Remus’s ears, “Fine, but only for a few minutes, okay?” A second later, the camera turns back to Sirius, but he’s not alone. 

By his side is a stunning Chinese girl, her hair dyed a light ash blonde. Her makeup is impeccably done, her winged eyeliner flicking up at the ends perfectly and her lips painted a deep burgundy red. In her black blazer and light pink dress shirt, she gives off the air of someone who could run in four-inch heels during a natural disaster. Together, she and Sirius are probably the two most attractive people on the face of the planet.

She waves at Remus lazily. “Hi. I’m Marlene.”

“Hi,” Remus croaks out. He’s never felt more like a lump of wet garbage. “I’m Remus.”

“Oh, I know,” she replies, her lips curling up. Remus revises his first judgement—there’s definitely something sharp about that smile. “Sirius talks about you _all_ the fucking time.”

“Oh,” Remus says, slightly stunned. He never expected to be mentioned by Sirius at all, to be honest.

“Yeah. He never shuts up about you. It’s always Remus this, Remus that. Remus listens to Mitski too, Marlene! Remus writes poetry, Marlene, and I really want to read it! Remus is homeschooled, and isn’t that so cool? Remus—”

“Okay, Marlene, that’s enough now!” Sirius says loudly. “Shouldn’t you be preparing for, I don’t know, your committee? Write some crisis notes! Bye!”

Marlene rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on, we’re just getting to know each other! Remus, has Sirius told you anything about me?” She smiles at him again. It’s not as dazzling as Sirius’s smile, but there’s still something powerful about it. 

“Um—” Remus wracks his brain. “I think he mentioned you once? Um, he said that he and James stole someone’s phone? I think to get back at them for hurting you?” Marlene’s face clouds over, and instantly, Remus knows he’s made a mistake.

“Wait, that was you?” she cries, turning to look at Sirius, anger in her dark eyes. “Sirius, what the fuck?”

Sirius holds up his hands. “I was just trying to help. Look, Marlene, you’re one of my best friends, and Evan couldn’t get away with doing that to you. Besides, it wasn’t like any of the actual administrators did anything to help when you reported him.”

“Because that takes time! An investigation takes time!” Marlene snaps. “No, the process obviously isn’t perfect, but all you did was publicly shame him on social media!”

Increasingly, Remus feels like he shouldn’t be part of this conversation. He moves to hang up, but almost imperceptibly, Sirius shakes his head, mouthing the words, “No, stay.”

“And it worked,” Sirius counters, turning back to Marlene. “I bet a bunch of people have definitely reported him to Penn. And he hasn’t done anything to you since, right?”

“But he could have!” Marlene shakes her head. “God, Sirius, you don’t understand, do you? When you do something like that to an absolutely unrepentant asshole like Evan, they don’t just let it go or accept it. They lash out, and they don’t take it out on people like you or James. They take it out on the people they see as beneath them, like me, or any of the other girls he’s harassed before. And we don’t even know that he’s not, I don’t know, spreading rumors about me again. He could be. You’re not going to shame someone like Evan into changing, because he doesn’t reflect—he just gets angrier.”

“Oh,” Sirius says quietly. “Fuck, Marlene, I’m so sorry.”

She laughs bitterly. “Yeah, you should be. You know, I’ve been trying to figure out who did that for _weeks._ I was terrified that Evan would think _I_ hacked his Facebook or some shit, and that he would come after me again because of that. I should have known it was you. You never think about _anything_ before you do it, Sirius, do you?” 

“I’m sorry,” Sirius says, more insistently this time. “Marlene, I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know,” Marlene says, her eyes hard. “But you just don’t think before you act, Sirius. That’s your entire fucking problem.”

“I know. I’ll try to do better. Seriously, I swear. And I’ll make this up to you, I promise,” Sirius says earnestly, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Just let me know how.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Marlene replies, brushing him off, but the anger is mostly gone from her eyes, replaced by weariness. She turns to Remus, looking apologetic. “I’m sorry for that, by the way. You shouldn’t have had to hear that.” She studies him with a firm gaze, and Remus shifts uncomfortably, feeling a bit like he’s being processed under a high-power microscope. “But—yeah, I think you’ll be good for Sirius. Tell him when he’s being an idiot, all right?”

“Hey, I’m not an idiot!” Sirius protests. “Would an idiot know how to explain quantum superpositions?”

“Everyone’s heard of Schrödinger’s cat, Sirius,” Marlene says, rolling her eyes. “You’re not special.”

“I’ll tell him when he’s being an idiot,” Remus promises, and Sirius turns to him, looking wounded.

“I am bullied constantly and mercilessly,” Sirius proclaims so dramatically that both Remus and Marlene instantly burst into laughter. “Nobody appreciates me.”

“We love you, Sirius,” Marlene sing-songs. 

“Nobody appreciates me,” Sirius grumbles again, but he’s smiling too. 

Suddenly, the hotel room door opens, and in strides a tall brown boy in a suit, his dark hair stuffed under an MIT baseball cap. “Whoa, it’s a whole party in here!” the boy, who can only be James, declares loudly. “Hey Marlene! Wait, is that the infamous Remus?” James pushes in between Sirius and Marlene, waving frantically. He cocks his head. “Huh. Somehow, you look exactly like I thought you would.”

“Um, thank you?” Remus says uncertainly. 

“Anyway, sorry to break up this joint—”

“James, it is the twenty-first century, so I have no idea why you insist on sounding like a nineteenth century sheriff.”

“—but committee starts in five minutes, so we should get back downstairs,” James says, jerking a hand to the door. “Say bye-bye to Remus and your girlfriend, Sirius.” He makes kissy-faces at Sirius, and Remus blushes. 

“Fucking hell,” Sirius curses, a strangely stricken look on his face. “Um—we’ll talk later?”

“Yeah, sure,” Remus replies. “I’ll be free all night, probably.”

“Great, great,” Sirius says, looking frantic still. “I’ll explain—”

“Sirius!” James calls from the doorway. “Are you coming?”

Sirius rolls his eyes. “I’ll call you back soon,” he promises. “Two hours max.”

* * *

Sirius keeps his promise, almost exactly down to the minute. Remus spends the two hours in between finally finishing “The Myth of Sisyphus,” coming to the conclusion that Sisyphus, even if he _is_ happy, is still a desperately tragic figure. Even ignoring the futility of his efforts, pushing a boulder up a hill is incredibly hard and painful, and Remus is pretty sure there’s no universal healthcare in Tartarus. 

“Hey,” Sirius says, smiling wanly. He looks visibly tired—the sleeves of his suit jacket are pushed halfway up his arms, and his striped tie is loose. It does nothing to make him any less handsome. 

“How’d—committee go?” Remus asks tentatively.

“Committee, yep. Well, we presented the PRONGS Plan, and I think that went pretty well—we didn’t get too many tough questions about it, and I’m pretty sure at least two-thirds of the delegations are on board with it already,” Sirius replies. “But, uh, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.” He takes a deep breath. “So, uh, remember when James called Marlene my girlfriend?”

“Vaguely?” Mostly, Remus remembers blushing like an idiot.

“Well, she’s not my girlfriend,” Sirius says.

“I didn’t think she was?” Remus furrows his brow in confusion. “I mean, you’re gay. That’s usually how this works.”

“I meant—” Sirius sighs. “God, I don’t know how to say this. Okay, so Marlene’s my girlfriend, but she’s not my real girlfriend, if that makes any sense.”

“Sorry, I don’t think I’m following this.” If anything, he only feels even more confused.

“Right, yeah.” Sirius shakes his head, looking resigned. “Okay, um, could you give me a sec? I just need to make a quick call to Marlene.” 

“Go ahead,” Remus says, and Sirius smiles.

“Great, thanks.” Sirius picks up his iPhone, dialing quickly and pressing it to his ear. “Hey, Marlene? Yeah, yeah, I’ll make this quick, I know you’re going to dinner with that girl Dori…whoops, sorry, Dorcas…yeah, committee went well…yeah, James is really happy about it, he thinks we have a good shot at winning Best Delegate…anyway, uh, so I told Remus about, you know, us…no, yeah, I tried to explain, but, well…could I tell him? It’d make a lot of things easier…Remus isn’t like that. He wouldn’t tell anyone. He can keep a secret…I promise. Yes, I know I already owe you, and again, I’m really sorry…fine, I’ll buy you coffee tomorrow, one of those fucking terrible mocha frappuccinos…okay, you’re the best, Marlene, thanks. Talk soon.” 

“I’m guessing Marlene falls squarely on the Starbucks side of the Starbucks versus Dunkin’ debate?” Remus asks, and Sirius nods, rolling his eyes.

“God knows why. Frappuccinos are literally liquid garbage. Anyway, so.” Sirius takes another deep breath. “Marlene’s, um, also gay. Well, technically, she’s a lesbian, but well, you knew that, it’s not like lesbian is like, some esoteric word, but yeah, like, uh, she really likes Girl in Red, if you know what I mean—”

Remus holds up a hand, unable to keep a smile from spreading across his face. Never before has he realized how cute Sirius is—and there are the Very Bad Idea sirens again—when he’s nervous. “Yeah, I get the gist. So, um, if I’m understanding this correctly, you’re both gay?” Sirius nods. “Okay. And you’re basically, uh, mutual beards?”

Sirius winces. “You make it sound like this is 1950, but yeah, kind of. We got together last spring after the whole Evan bullshit. Marlene thought that maybe he’d leave her alone if he knew she had a boyfriend. Obviously, that didn’t work.”

“But you stayed together anyway?”

“Yeah.” Sirius looks down. “Marlene’s family—they’re not really shitty or homophobic, more just ignorant, but she’s not really ready to come out yet. And, well, my dad—did I ever tell you what my dad does for a living?”

Remus shakes his head, and Sirius sighs. “Right. Well, he’s not only a Republican asshole, but his literal job is being a Republican asshole. He works for one of those conservative think tanks—think Heritage Foundation, basically, but somehow worse, if that’s even possible. Like, my dad genuinely believes all that ‘focus on the family’ bullshit about how letting LGBTQ people have equal rights is a threat to religious freedom. If they repealed Obergefell, my dad would celebrate.”

“What the fuck?” Remus can’t even keep the incredulity out of his voice. 

“Yeah. So obviously I can’t come out to him, you know? And my mom—I don’t know if she believes in that shit, but I’d rather not take my chances and end up on the streets. Besides, my parents seem to like Marlene enough. She can be terrifyingly polite when she wants to be, and she’s fluent in Mandarin, which my mom loves. It just helps both of us if people think we’re together,” Sirius says, shrugging slightly.

“That makes sense,” Remus says slowly. “So everyone at your school—”

“Also thinks we’re actually dating. You don’t have to do much to convince people of that, actually, contrary to popular belief. All you have to do is walk together to class and seem like you enjoy each other’s general presence, and then heteronormativity fills in the holes for you.”

“Heteronormativity is a powerful drug,” Remus agrees. Then, a thought occurs to him. “Wait, so even James doesn’t know the truth? I mean, when you told me that you were only out to a few people, I thought he’d be one of them, given how close you are and all.”

Sirius shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah, he doesn’t. Um, the only people I’m out to are you, Marlene, obviously, and Emmy. It’s just—logically, I know James would probably be okay with it. Like, he’s not the kind of person who makes homophobic jokes or anything. But there’s always the chance that he might not be, you know? Sometimes the way people react to someone who’s fictional and gay is different than how they’d react to someone who’s actually gay. And, you know, I’ve slept over at his house before, and we share a dorm room. And as much as we make fun of each other, he’s probably the most important person in my entire life. I just—I can’t lose him, you know?”

“Yeah,” Remus says quietly. When Remus came out to Peter, he barely even thought about it, mostly because he figured that Peter wouldn’t really care which way Remus swung, and even if he did, Remus could probably get by fine without him. He can’t imagine what it must be like for Sirius.

“It’s fine,” Sirius says, smiling shakily. “I can wait to come out, you know? I’ve waited eighteen years already. Besides, James and I probably won’t go to the same college, so I can tell him then. I just have to wait a few more months.”

A few more months, and everything will work out. It’s a familiar echo.

* * *

That night, lying in bed, Remus thinks back to the first time he realized he wasn’t totally straight.

Ironically, it had taken someone else coming out for him to even consider it. It was the summer before their sophomore year, and Lily had told him she was bi over a Facetime call.

She’d said it casually—so casually, in fact, that he was fairly sure he was just hearing things. They were streaming _Heathers,_ and Lily had said, “God, everyone in this movie is unfairly attractive. Also, by the by, I’m bi.”

“Wait, what?” Remus paused the movie, partly out of shock and partly out of confusion.

“I’m bi,” she said again. “You know, bisexual?”

“Oh. Oh, okay,” Remus replied, still slightly stunned. “Um, okay! I support you, in like, everything, and, uh, I don’t care who you love. Love is love is love, and, uh—”

“Thank you,” Lily said, interrupting him with a smile. “I get the point. Thanks, Remus. I knew I could count on you.”

“Uh, yeah, yeah! I’m always here for you.” He’d struggled for words for a few moments, unsure if there was anything else he should say, or, for that matter, anything he definitely shouldn’t say. “Uh, is it okay if I like, ask a few questions?”

“Sure, go ahead,” Lily shrugged. 

“Right. So, uh, how did you know? You know, that you were bi and all?”

Lily shrugged again. “I mean, it’s different for everyone, but for me, it was just kind of an ‘oh’ moment, you know? I realized that most of my friends didn’t love Shego as much as I did, even though we all loved Zuko.”

“Everyone loves Zuko,” Remus said. _“I_ love Zuko, and, I mean, I’m straight.”

“I mean, that wasn’t the only thing, obviously, but it did get me thinking. I finally figured it out a few months ago, and when I said it out loud—well, it all finally made sense.” Lily smiled again. “Now, can we get back to the movie? I want to see how they cover this clusterfuck up.”

He’d nodded, and they’d spent the next hour engrossed in the drama of Westerburg High. For days—even weeks—afterwards, though, Remus went back to that conversation. Was his love of Zuko normal for someone who was straight? It had to be, because after all, there wasn’t any way that Remus _wasn’t_ straight. His terrible crush on Lily was proof of that. In fact, all of his crushes—even celebrity crushes—were female. He found Emma Watson just as attractive as every other guy. Just because he’d loved _Glee_ didn’t mean he wasn’t straight either. He’d watched _Glee_ for the terrible humor and storylines, not because he actually _related_ to any of the characters. 

Except that wasn’t true. He thought back to all the times he’d stared a little bit too long at pictures of Henry Cavill. He thought about how he was disappointed not only on an emotional level, but also a spiritual level, when Zuko kissed Mai. He thought about how he’d rewatched the episode of _Glee_ where Santana came out over and over again.

The clincher came when he was volunteering at the food pantry that winter on Thanksgiving. One of the other volunteers was a senior at Thomas Jefferson, and he had the brightest blue eyes Remus had ever seen. When he smiled, Remus blushed so terribly that he wanted to sink into the floor. 

That night, he’d stayed up until nearly five in the morning, taking sexuality quizzes which weren’t helpful and reading articles about sexuality that were. By the time he finally fell asleep, he felt like there were a few things that made more sense. 

Coming out to his parents had been more of a foregone conclusion than something to dread, largely because he knew both of his parents were staunchly liberal. He’d made a PowerPoint presentation, gathered his parents in the living room for a meeting, and come out without much fanfare. Afterwards, his mother had hugged him tightly, whispering, “We’re so proud of you” in his ear, and his father had nodded approvingly—the closest he ever got to outright affection. 

In short, while coming out for Remus had been confusing, it was never terrifying—or, for that matter, dangerous. 

But for Sirius, it is. And Remus wants so, so badly to change that.

But he can’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! kudos + comments fuel me! <3


	9. october iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus goes to a Halloween party.

**Admissions Advice Corner** **  
** **#announcements | Server upkeep + general information!**

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 6:03 PM) **  
** @everyone the results of our annual meme contest are in and...drumroll please...the winner is the hilarious, the astonishing, the way too active  @starman but like, COOLER! sirius dazzled the mods of AAC with his surrealist college admissions meme, and we’re proud to crown him as the meme king of this year’s halloween meme contest.

(as a side note, seriously, sirius, get more sleep.)

to claim your prize, please dm one of the mods! once again, congratulations to sirius, and thank you to everyone who participated!

 **padfoot** (Today at 6:05 PM)  
told you i was the meme king

 **moony** (Today at 6:07 PM)  
i guess you really are  
congrats on the win lol

Sirius’s winning meme definitely fits the description of surrealist—it’s a deep-fried screencap of a Reddit post on r/collegeadmissions titled “Does college admissions make anyone else hate themselves?” Sirius has photoshopped in a skeleton wearing skull-shaped orange sunglasses and a speech bubble stating, “Joke’s on you, college admissions, I already hated myself!” 

**padfoot** (Today at 6:07 PM)  
thank you thank you  
emmy being a judge probably helped  
we basically have the same sense of humor

 **moony** (Today at 6:08 PM)  
what’s that?

 **padfoot** (Today at 6:08 PM)  
incredibly depressing

 **moony** (Today at 6:08 PM)  
oh

 **padfoot** (Today at 6:08 PM)  
anyway on an unrelated note i finally submitted my yale application ten minutes ago  
now all there’s left to do is wait and hope i don’t get in

 **moony** (Today at 6:09 PM)  
you know  
you’re probably the only applicant who doesn’t want to get in

 **padfoot** (Today at 6:10 PM)  
if i don’t get in that frees up a space for someone else that actually wants to go

 **moony** (Today at 6:10 PM)  
i guess  
congrats on submitting your first app though

 **padfoot** (Today at 6:11 PM)  
thanks

“Remus? Are you ready yet?” His mother’s voice, slightly muffled by the closed door, comes from the hallway, and Remus sighs. Honestly, he’d rather be hit by a semi-tractor-trailer truck and spend the rest of the week in the hospital than go to this Halloween party with Peter, but it’s not like he can back out now, less than twenty minutes before he’s supposed to leave the house. 

“I’m ready!” he calls back. Well, as ready as he’ll ever be, that is. His one concession to the Halloween spirit tonight is his outfit—an orange UVA sweatshirt, one of the lone pops of color in his entire wardrobe, and black jeans. 

A moment later, his door turns open, and his mother steps in. With her pumpkin-patterned purple dress, she’s clearly feeling far more festive than he is. Dangling from her right hand are the keys to her Subaru.

“We’re leaving already?” Remus asks, confused. He glances at his laptop clock. Sure enough, he still has nearly fifteen minutes. 

She shakes her head. “No, you’re leaving,” she corrects, a beaming smile spread across her face. “I thought you could drive yourself tonight!”

Remus can’t stop an incredulous laugh from coming out of his mouth. “Wait, what?”

“Well, you have a license for a reason,” his mother shrugs. “Your father and I have discussed it, and we thought it’d be good for you to start using it.”

“But tonight?” Remus shakes his head. “Look, Mom, why can’t you drive me like we decided? What if I decide to take a bunch of shots and get super drunk or something?”

“Are you going to?” She raises an eyebrow, and Remus sighs.

“No, I won’t,” he replies, resigned. “But Mom, I barely even passed my driver’s test.” He’d somehow scraped a 92% on the written portion, but the actual road test had been a disaster. He’d hit the curb when attempting to parallel park, and he drove so slowly that the examiner had actually noted it on his legal pad, scribbling out, “Excessively cautious. Maybe too cautious.” He was fairly certain that the only reason he’d passed in the end was his mother, who, in her usual exuberance, had told the examiner cheerily that it was Remus’s birthday, and it was probably bad form to fail people on their birthdays.

Also, driving is terrifying. There’s nothing more horrific than the moment you decide to shift lanes, forgetting to look in the side mirror, and almost get rear-ended by a speeding Mercedes-Benz. 

“But you did pass,” she insists. “And that’s all you need!” She drops down into an armchair. “Remus, you’re going off to college soon, where you’ll need to be independent. Driving on your own will teach you how to do that.”

“Do I have to?” He’s aware of the whine in his voice, but he can’t help it from coming out. “Please just drive me this once?” 

His mother shakes her head firmly. “Remus, you can do it.” She drops the keys into his left hand, and Remus lets them dangle limply from his fingers. He stares at her sullenly, raising his eyebrows, but she just looks at him firmly. “You can do it. Now, isn’t it time for you to get going?”

He sighs. “Fine.” 

“Great!” she chirps, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Drive safe, and be back by midnight, all right?”

“I’ll be back by midnight,” he promises, wondering when he became Cinderella. 

The moment Remus slides into the driver’s seat of the Subaru, he instantly remembers everything he hates about driving. The wheel under his hands feels like dull lead, and switching the gear from park into drive might as well be signing his own death warrant. He triple-checks the mirrors, adjusting them to make sure—God forbid—he doesn’t have a blind spot that will cause him to crash into a telephone pole. Then, he sucks in a deep breath, presses his foot down onto the gas pedal, and slowly backs out of the driveway.

Peter’s house is half a mile away at most, but it may as well be across the Atlantic Ocean, for all the wheel-clenching and nervous side-glancing Remus does throughout the drive. Somehow, he manages to get there in one piece, even parking the car off the curb and not on it, probably for the first time ever.

Usually, Peter’s house is a picture of Stepford suburban quaintness, all ivory window shutters and trimmed berry bushes. Tonight, though, it’s been transformed into the haunted house of Remus’s childhood nightmares, with cobwebs stretching across doorways, grinning jack-o’-lanterns lining the cobblestone path, and even an elaborate foam graveyard spread across the front lawn, plastic skeletons trying desperately to escape from certain doom. It’s definitely the handiwork of Mrs. Pettigrew, who buys out the entirety of Home Depot’s Christmas decorations every November, proudly displaying inflatable Santa Claus on his puffy red sleigh commanding blown-up Rudolph and his fellow reindeer on their lawn even before Thanksgiving. 

Ringing the doorbell, Remus braces himself for an incredibly in-character Mrs. Pettigrew, probably dressed head-to-toe in a Gothic witch’s costume. There’s a non-zero chance that his phobia of witches was shaped by trick-or-treating at the Pettigrews’s house. 

Luckily, though, it’s Peter who answers the door, though he looks no less ridiculous. He’s wearing an oversized lion onesie and has wobbly whiskers drawn on his face with eyeliner. The effect is underwhelming. 

“What’re you supposed to be?” Peter frowns, ushering Remus inside.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Remus replies, bemused.

“Obviously, I’m the Cowardly Lion,” Peter says, gesturing to the onesie.

“Obviously?”

“It’s a band thing. We’re all characters from The Wizard of Oz,” Peter explains. He studies Remus with a furrowed brow. “So what’re you again?” 

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean nothing?” Peter demands. “You’ve got to be _something._ It’s a _Halloween_ party, Remus.”

“Well, then I’m a UVA student,” Remus says, shrugging. He lifts up the logo on his sweatshirt. “See?”

Peter rolls his eyes. “That’s not a costume. That’s just your outfit. I mean, if you were an athlete or—” Suddenly, as if struck by divine inspiration, his face brightens. “Wait here. I’ve got an idea.” He bounds upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time, leaving Remus behind in the living room.

“Wait, Peter, where’s everyone else?” Remus calls up after him, but Peter, already having disappeared into one of the bedrooms, doesn’t seem to hear him. 

Remus sighs, resigning himself to waiting alone until Peter returns. He slinks down into one of the plush leather couches, gazing around the room. Everything is arranged perfectly, from the delicate flowers in porcelain vases sitting on the glass coffee table to the family pictures placed on the mantle above the authentic fireplace, all four Pettigrews grinning from ear to ear. Yet for all of Mrs. Pettigrew’s efforts, it still feels lived-in—or at least more lived-in than Sirius’s similarly pristine bedroom. 

After a few minutes, Peter finally comes back down the stairs, carrying an oversized basketball jersey. “Found it!” he announces cheerfully, presenting it to Remus with a flourish.

“What’s this for?” Remus says, holding the jersey delicately.

“For you, obviously,” Peter says. “It’s your costume!”

“My costume?”

“Yeah. This jersey’s one of my dad’s, and he won’t miss it. I thought you could wear it over your sweatshirt or something,” Peter replies. 

“And how is this any better than my sweatshirt?” Remus asks. “Isn’t it basically just another outfit?”

Peter shakes his head firmly. “No, a sweatshirt’s just an outfit. But a jersey’s a costume.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Remus retorts.

“Come on,” Peter says. “Is it really that big of a deal? Can’t you just wear it?”

“I don’t think costumes are a big deal in general,” Remus says, but he gives in, wriggling into the oversized jersey. “There. Are you happy?” 

“Nice,” Peter nods. “Very festive.” He doesn’t even sound sarcastic.

“Um, by the way, where’s everyone else?” Remus asks. 

“Oh, they’re all in the basement already,” Peter says flippantly. He starts walking out of the room, before turning and looking back at Remus. “Well? Are you coming?”

Sure enough, milling around in Peter’s basement are the entire cast of The Wizard of Oz, complete with an elaborate Tin Man and one poor sop who’s been relegated to the role of Toto. An undercurrent of lively chatter runs through the room, which abruptly comes to a halt when Peter whistles loudly, causing every head in the room to turn to him.

“This is Remus,” Peter says grandiosely, pushing Remus forward. “He’s homeschooled, but he’s coming to the party tonight.”

“Hi,” Remus grimaces, waving awkwardly. “Um, nice to meet everyone.”

A chorus of hellos responds enthusiastically, though it’s obvious that no one else knows who Remus is. The Tin Man, whose mop of blond hair is barely hidden under a meticulously sculpted tinfoil hat, is the only one to approach him and Peter, greeting Peter with a high-five and a broad smile on his face. 

“What’s up, dude?” The Tin Man says, holding up his hand. Remus does his best to return the high-five with the same vigor. “They call me Doctor Sax.”

“Caradoc, no one calls you Doctor Sax,” Peter says, rolling his eyes. “Remus, this is Caradoc. Call him Caradoc or Doc, but not Doctor Sax.”

“Excuse you, everyone calls me Doctor Sax,” Caradoc says with a smile, elbowing Peter slightly but fondly. “Anyway, Peter, Mary’s been looking for you.”

“She has?” Peter’s eyes immediately light up, and Caradoc nods.

“Yeah. I think she wants a glass of water?”

“I’m on it,” Peter says enthusiastically, and almost immediately, he disappears back up the stairs.

“Cool guy, right?” Caradoc says, slightly inclining his head.

“Huh?”

“I mean, Peter’s a cool guy, right? A little too into trumpet, probably, but you could say the same about me and sax,” Caradoc clarifies. “I’ve known him for—fuck, wow, almost five years now, and he’s so chill. He just goes with the flow.”

“Yeah.” For the first time, Remus realizes—really realizes—how many friends Peter must have. He’s known this in theory for a while: that Peter has a life outside of him, has his own social group and interests and goals. Of course he’s known this. How can he not? But now, talking to Caradoc, it’s like this knowledge has snapped into clear focus. “Yeah. He’s a cool guy.”

Just then, Peter comes downstairs again, a pretty girl clad in a Dorothy costume by his side. “Remus, meet Mary,” he says, gesturing to the girl. 

“Good to finally meet you, Remus,” Mary says warmly. “You’re really rocking that jersey.”

Remus glances down at the baggy jersey hanging awkwardly off his frame. “Thanks. I’m sure I look exactly like—Number 44, Singletary.”

“I gave him the jersey, you know,” Peter interjects, and Mary rolls her eyes.

“Yes, yes, what a wonderfully selfless act,” she replies. By the way she looks at Peter, though, with a sort of exasperated affection, it seems that Peter might not be as far out of her league as he thinks he is.

“Anyway,” Peter says, clearing his throat, “I still have to introduce someone to you.” He glances around the room. “Okay, there she is. Come with me, Remus.”

Remus lets himself be dragged along by Peter, who pushes past a girl in an incredibly detailed Glinda the Good Witch costume talking to a lanky Munchkin, finally stopping when they reach a corner of the basement. 

“Okay,” Peter says, pointing to someone with a short mop of bright pink hair, clad in a sailor dress adorned with a huge yellow bow. “That’s Tonks. Go introduce yourself.”

“You mean the person I’m babysitting?” Remus says wryly. Peter fixes him with a glare. “Okay, okay, I’m going.”

He walks over, waving awkwardly. “Um, hi. I’m Remus.”

“Oh my God, hi! I’m Tonks, but I bet you knew that already. It’s great to meet you! Wow, you’re a lot taller than I thought you’d be. I mean, it’s not like I thought you’d be short, but whew, you’re tall! It’s like you’re a construction crane or something, and I’m just looking up at you. But not in a bad way! You’re just tall. Anyway, what’s your costume? A UVA jersey over a UVA sweatshirt’s a bold look. Are you a UVA student? Wait, no, let me guess: you’re a UVA _applicant._ Very smart costume. I approve.” 

Quickly, Remus realizes that Tonks speaks faster and more excitedly than anyone else he’s ever met. He feels like a hurricane made of merely words has just blown past him. “Oh, the jersey’s not actually mine,” he says, now incredibly aware of his own height—a subject that, in truth, he’s never given much thought to before. “It’s Peter’s. He gave it to me when I got here. I guess I’m just a basketball player? What’s your costume?”

“I’m Sailor Uranus!” Tonks says cheerfully, twirling around. “From Sailor Moon! I made the costume myself, actually. I took a sewing class over the summer, and I learned to make dresses!”

“That’s really cool,” Remus says sincerely. Then, a thought occurs to him. “So, Tonks—that’s a super unique name. How’d your parents come up with it?”

“Actually, they didn’t! It’s my last name,” Tonks explains. “Well, actually, it’s not even my last name. See, when my dad’s parents came here from South Korea, our surname was actually Tak, not Tonks, but the immigration officials heard my grandpa wrong or something, I guess, so they marked our surname down as Tonks.” Tonks shrugs. “But that’s the way things go.”

“Oh. Wait, what’s your first name then?”

Tonks shifts from side to side, looking uncomfortable. “Um, it’s—I don’t like it very much. It’s very—gendered.”

“Oh.” _Oh._ Suddenly, Remus feels like a massive asshole. “I’m really sorry.”

Tonks smiles weakly. “It’s okay. You didn’t know.”

“Um, what pronouns are you comfortable with?”

“She/her is good today, and they/them is always fine,” Tonks says, sounding equal parts surprised and relieved. “But I don’t like it when people insist on calling me by my first name or calling me a girl, even when I’m using she/her pronouns, you know? It just feels wrong.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

“Not much anymore,” Tonks says. “I mean, it’s not like everyone at school knows I’m nonbinary, but most of my friends do, and my teachers know to call me Tonks too. It’s only really a problem with substitutes, but they’re substitutes, and they usually catch on quickly too.” She shrugs. “Anyway, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard a sub pronounce Kaitlyn’s name ‘Candela’ and insist that pronunciation is actually correct.”

“And then Kaitlyn bursts into tears and calls her mom, Karen, to try to get the sub fired?”

“How’d you know?” Tonks laughs. “God. We all know a Kaitlyn, don’t we?”

“And a Karen.” Remus is pretty sure that at least three of his own mother’s friends qualify as Karens.

“Anyway, are you excited for the party?” Tonks asks. “Honestly, I still can’t believe I’m going. I mean, it’s Ludo Bagman’s party. I never thought I could even get a ticket.”

“Okay, can someone please tell me what’s so special about this Ludo Bagman guy? I mean, isn’t he just a guy?” 

Tonks looks at Remus like he’s insane. “It’s not about Ludo Bagman. It’s about his _party._ Remus, last year, I heard that _Zendaya_ showed up.”

“I don’t think Zendaya’s coming to some random high schooler’s party,” Remus says, but Tonks just shrugs again.

“You never know,” she says simply. “Anything can happen.”

A second later, another sharp whistle from Peter fills the room, and every head turns to look at him. “All right!” Peter says, clapping his hands together. “My mom says she’s not driving us—okay, guys, stop groaning! Ludo’s house is literally two streets away. She says we can just walk.”

The room fills with groans again, but slowly, the crowd begins to trickle upstairs and outside. Peter motions for everyone to follow him, and Remus and Tonks fall into a line that resembles more of a clump, traipsing down the sidewalk.

Even in the crisp autumn breeze, the night is warm, suffused with the last traces of summer. With red and orange leaves lining the sidewalk, it’s the kind of atmosphere to write poetry about, as perfect as an autumn night can be. 

That is, as perfect as an autumn night can be if you disregard all of Remus’s emotions, wants, and desires.

After a few minutes of walking, a structure that must be Ludo Bagman’s house, barely shrouded by a wall of pine trees, comes into view. Sure enough, as Peter said, it’s a mansion, or as much of a mansion as there ever is in Fairfax. A sprawling fountain greets them, the mouth of a tortured iron fish spitting out rivulets of clear water. Behind it stands the McMansion in question, a strange blend of Greco-Roman columns and enormous glass windows.

Then again, it’s not like anyone’s here to undertake an architectural survey of the house. Judging by the flashing lights and loud music echoing out of the house, the party’s already in full swing. 

Peter marches up to the front door, which is being guarded by two boys that could charitably be described as scrawny. Judging by the way they wear their black shutter shades—their chins jutting out and lips pressed together—they probably think they look much cooler than they actually do. 

“Got a ticket?” the first boy says, attempting to grunt, and Peter nods eagerly.

“Yep!” Peter pulls out a dozen slips of paper, which the boy examines critically for a few moments before waving them inside.

Almost immediately, Remus is bombarded by a wall of blaring music, all heavy beats and pounding electronic melodies. It’s like someone found a stereo and decided the best thing to do was turn it past eleven and up to twelve, stopping only when the volume became nearly unbearable. The screeching feedback doesn’t help matters either. 

It doesn’t seem like anyone else minds, though. When Remus turns around to ask Peter why on Earth he thought bringing Remus to this party would be a good idea, Peter’s gone, having seemingly disappeared into the crowd with Mary, Caradoc, and his other friends. Truthfully, Remus doesn’t know why he expected anything different. 

“Do you want to grab some food or something?”

“What?” Remus turns to look at Tonks, whose eyes are both nervous and eager, drinking in the splendor of the house.

“Do you want to grab some food? Or maybe a drink? There’s got to be pizza or something here, right?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Remus replies. “Lead the way, I guess.”

He follows Tonks, who somehow seems to know exactly where she’s going, through the winding hallways, navigating delicately past dancing crowds. Finally, at the end of the hallways, they end up in a common room that’s been converted into a makeshift bar, kegs strewn over the plastic folding tables and bottles of vodka and beer arranged in neat rows.

“Vodka, beer, or punch?” Remus jolts as he turns towards the voice, which is coming from a dark-haired girl dressed as Snow White, complete with a dainty tiara. She’s lounging on the arm of a couch, and she raises an eyebrow at him lazily. “Well?”

“Um, is there water?” Remus asks tentatively. 

“What?” 

“Uh, never mind,” he says hastily. Next to the rows of vodka are, for whatever reason, a collection of tiny Gatorade bottles, and he picks one up. “Can I take one of these?”

“I mean, they’re chasers, but sure, I guess,” the girl shrugs. She turns to look at Tonks. “What about you?”

“Vodka, please!” Tonks says cheerily. She looks up at Remus, grinning. “I’ve never actually drunk before! This is so cool!”

Remus searches his brain for any advice he’s ever gotten about alcohol. Most of it seems to be some variation of “just say no,” but given that Tonks is now holding a Gatorade in one hand and a shot of vodka in the other, that doesn’t seem like the most fruitful path to go down. “Um, just pace yourself,” he tries, and Tonks nods.

“Of course I will,” she says. “Pinky swear.”

They make their way back into one of the main rooms, thankfully one where the pounding music is more subdued. Remus slumps down into one of the oversized leather couches, relaxing into it and pulling out his phone, resigned to a night of scrolling through social media. Quickly, though, he notices that Tonks keeps gazing wistfully towards the source of the music.

“Um, do you want to dance or something?” Remus asks. “I mean, I don’t really like dancing, but if you want to go, you can just go, and I’ll just be waiting here if you need help or anything—”

“Really? That’d be great!” Tonks bounces up the couch so quickly Remus almost gets whiplash. “Thanks, Remus! I’m going to go find Fleur! Be back soon!” Not a minute later, she’s gone.

Strangely enough, sitting here, in the living room of a stranger and scrolling through Instagram, Remus feels calmer than he has in days. That might just be the couch, though. God, Remus could wax poetic about this couch. 

Instagram is populated with pictures of other Halloween parties that, honestly, don’t look any more fun than the one he’s at right now, but he’d rather be at them anyway. He likes a picture of Lily in her Batgirl costume—she’s photoshopped in a background of Gotham and is grinning from ear to ear. The rest of his feed is filled with people he hasn’t spoken to in years, friends of friends whose faces he probably couldn’t pick out in a line-up. 

He wonders what Sirius is doing tonight. He’s probably at a party; he’s charismatic enough to fit in anywhere he goes. His costume is probably something elaborate, something dramatic and hand-crafted. He probably looks fantastic in it. He’d look fantastic in anything.

He lets his mind drift, imagining what it would be like to be Sirius. Sirius would want to go to a party and drink and dance. He wouldn’t be sitting alone, a barrier between him and the rest of the crowd. Sirius would lean against a wall, a beer in his hand, and everyone would flock to him just to hear him speak, to bask in his presence, like ordinary moths drawn to the brightest, most brilliant light. He would say something witty, and everyone would laugh. And the most second-most beautiful boy in the crowd would come to him too, because the most beautiful would be Sirius, of course, and they would flirt, maybe, dance—

But no, Sirius wouldn’t do that. No, it would have to be a girl, and all of the flirting would be half-hearted, all of the dancing too, and Sirius would do it with a heavy heart and a wince in his step, feeling like an imposter all the while.

And that’s the problem, then. It’s easier to inhabit the body of another when you only know the chalk outlines of their beings, but once you’ve gotten a glimpse of the flesh and blood underneath, everything that drives them forward and terrifies them and makes them yearn to be known and loved, the question of inhabitation is an impossible one. 

Remus sighs, leaning back into the couch. He mindlessly scrolls through the rest of his Instagram feed, liking every other picture. When his eyelids begin to grow heavy and he finds himself yawning, he lets his head loll onto the couch, falling asleep to the rhythmic pulsing of Flo Rida’s “Low.”

* * *

He wakes to the sound of giggling—lots of giggling. “Re-mus,” a sing-song voice calls from above him. A finger pokes his nose, and Remus blinks open his eyes blearily to be faced with an obviously drunk, incredibly exuberant Tonks.

“Remus!” Tonks cheers. “You’re awake!” 

“I’m awake,” Remus says, nodding. He squints at her. “How much have you had to drink?”

“Not that much,” Tonks protests, giggling. “Two shots? Wait, no, three. Maybe four? I had some of Fleur’s punch! It tasted like flowers,” she whispers conspiratorially. She collapses onto the couch, still giggling. “Remus, do you know what flowers taste like? They taste like happiness.”

“Okay, you’ve definitely had enough,” Remus decides. “I’m going to get you some water, okay? Just wait here.” And then he’s going to do his best to convince Tonks, and everyone else, to leave. 

Tonks nods—or at least seems to nod between her giggles—and Remus stands up, hoping that he’ll find water sooner than later.

Unfortunately, in the first three rooms he searches, there are no water bottles or coolers lying astray. He does find someone’s Rolex watch lying on the floor, its glass face cracked down the middle, but it’s not like Tonks can drink that.

After searching four more rooms without any luck at all, he decides that he might as well find a bathroom and fill a cup up with tap water. He swipes a mostly dry red Solo cup from one of the folding tables and shuffles down the long hallways, ducking his head into every room. 

Finally, turning open the second-to-last door in the third hallway he searches, he comes face-to-face with a bathroom. Luckily, it’s definitely a bathroom, complete with a sink with running water. Unluckily, the moment he opens the door, he nearly gags from the smell permeating the small room, which is currently being inhabited by a redheaded boy who is definitely stoned. 

“What the fuck is that smell?” Remus pinches his nose, willing his nostrils to push back against the stench.

The redhead looks up at him, taking a drag from his joint. “Someone shit in the bathtub,” he says lazily, as if someone deciding to use a bathtub as their personal toilet is an everyday occurrence. “Wanna see?”

“No, what the fuck?” Remus feels the beginnings of a migraine coming on, and he tries his best to take deep breaths without actually inhaling any of the air. “Is no one going to clean it up?”

The redhead shrugs. “Someone probably will. Eventually.”

“But that won’t be you,” Remus says dryly.

“Hey, bro, _I_ didn’t take a shit in the tub,” the redhead says, holding up his hands. “Don’t blame me.”

“I—” Remus shakes his head, giving up. “Never mind.” He turns open the sink, filling up the cup with water, and then walks—practically runs—out of the bathroom, shutting the door tightly behind him.

He makes his way back into the common room as quickly as he can, only making one wrong turn (a movie room, four couples, far more slobbery kissing and protests of “no, _you’re_ cuter” than he ever wanted to see or hear). In the common room, Tonks is still sitting on the same couch. Next to her, though, is someone Remus doesn’t recognize, a boy with golden hair wearing a lab coat, shirtless underneath the coat. He has an arm around her shoulders, and Tonks looks more uncomfortable by the second, leaning as far away from him as she can without falling off the couch. 

“Hey,” Remus says loudly. “I have water for you, Tonks.”

“Thanks, Remus,” Tonks says weakly, a smile frozen on her face. She’s not giggling anymore.

The boy with golden hair turns to look at Remus. “Nice to meet you, Remus,” he says, extending a hand that Remus pointedly doesn’t shake. “I’m Ludo. Tonks here and I are just getting along, getting to know each other, having some fun, you know?” He squeezes her shoulder and smiles lazily, carrying the air of someone who’s never been denied anything in their life. 

“Tonks doesn’t look like she’s having fun,” Remus says coldly. Looking at Ludo, he can’t believe _this_ is the person Peter’s been fawning over for the past month. Some things, like why Ludo invited the freshmen girls if he claims to hate them so much, make more sense now. “You do know that she’s one, drunk, and two, a freshman, right?”

Ludo holds up his hands, a look of practiced offense on his face. “Woah, man, I wasn’t trying anything.” He smiles at Remus again. “Sorry if you thought I was, you know, trying to steal your girl or something.”

Tonks keeps smiling, but her unhappiness is even more obvious now.

“Don’t say that,” Remus says. “She—” Almost imperceptibly, Tonks shakes her head, and Remus changes tack. “She’s not anyone’s property, and she clearly doesn’t want to talk to you, so leave her alone, asshole.”

Clearly, Ludo wasn’t expecting Remus to push back, because he looks genuinely stunned. “Okay, sorry, dude. Sorry, Tonks,” he mumbles. “Sorry if I, like, offended you or anything. I didn’t know she had a boyfriend.”

“I’m not her boyfriend,” Remus protests. Then, because all of his brain cells have decided to abandon him, he says, “I’m, um, her brother.”

“Her brother?” Ludo looks between Remus and Tonks, visibly confused. Tonks, for one, is biting her lips, struggling to hold back laughter.

“I’m adopted,” Remus says, because he’s apparently intent on digging himself into a deeper hole. “From Canada. What, are you going to say that she’s not my real sister or something? Because she is. She’s definitely my sister.”

“Dude, what?” Ludo pushes himself off the couch, shaking his head. “Look, I’m sorry, Tonks. And I’m sorry for annoying your sister or whatever.” Muttering under his breath, Remus can just make out him saying, “This shit is so wack.”

Luckily, Ludo does leave the room, and the moment he’s gone, Tonks breathes out a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much, Remus,” she says, taking a long sip from the water. “I tried everything, but he just wouldn’t leave.” 

“I shouldn’t have left you alone there,” Remus says, sighing. “Um, so, do you still want to stay here? Like, at the party, or—”

Somehow, Tonks seems to understand. “We can go,” she says quickly. “I’m kind of over this too.”

“Okay,” Remus says. Thank God. “Who’s your ride home?”

Tonks screws up her face, deep in thought. “I—I can’t remember,” she says a moment later, her face falling. “Sorry.”

“Okay.” No need to panic. He’ll just text Peter, and Peter will probably know what to do. 

**Remus (11:37 PM):** peter where are you

 **Peter (11:37 PM):** Dairy Queen!

A second later, Peter sends a picture of five ice creams, arranged in a circle. Remus has to will himself to not bodily slam his face into a wall.

 **Remus (11:38 PM):** what do you mean you’re at dairy queen??

 **Peter (11:39 PM):** Mary’s friends wanted to go to Dairy Queen

 **Peter (11:39 PM):** Remus, I think she might actually like me back!!!!

 **Peter (11:39 PM):** Did something happen at the party?

 **Peter (11:40 PM):** Sorry for not letting you know earlier, but I didn’t think you’d want to come since you don’t know any of Mary’s friends 

**Peter (11:41 PM):** I can give you the address if you want to come though

On one hand, Remus wants to yell at Peter for abandoning him and Tonks. On the other hand, Remus can’t say that if he was in the same position, caught between going to Dairy Queen with his crush or staying at a shitty party, he wouldn’t have done the same thing. 

He begins typing out a response to Peter’s question, but then, right before sending it, he stops. If he told Peter that he needed Tonks’s address, Peter would be worried, and then he’d come back to the party, cutting whatever’s going on with Mary short. Even if Peter hasn’t been a particularly good friend tonight, Remus still doesn’t want to do that to him.

 **Remus (11:43 PM):** never mind

 **Remus (11:43 PM):** just checking in

 **Peter (11:43 PM):** Sounds good! Stay safe!

Pocketing his phone, Remus sighs. Turning to Tonks, he asks, “What did you say your friend’s name was again? Flower?”

“Fleur,” Tonks corrects. “But she’s a freshman too. She can’t drive.”

“Well, does she know your address?”

“I think so,” Tonks says tentatively. “Why?”

“Okay. Let’s go find Fleur, and then she can give me your address. I can drive you home,” Remus says. “If she needs a ride, I can take her too.”

“Really?”

Remus nods. “Yeah, no problem.” He sends up a silent prayer that his minimal driving skills won’t fail him tonight.

Fleur turns out to be a willowy blonde girl wearing a delicate fairy costume, all tulle and shimmer, standing in the middle of the dance floor and twirling around gently to Lana Del Rey. Her eyes are painted with lavender glitter, and if you told Remus she was an actual fae, he would believe it. When she sees Tonks, stumbling and tired, her eyes grow wide.

“Are you okay?” Fleur asks, hugging Tonks tightly. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“I’m okay,” Tonks replies shakily. Gesturing to Remus, she says, “This is my friend Remus. He said that he can drive us home.”

“Really?” Fleur studies Remus, raising an eyebrow critically. A moment later, she nods. “Okay. Thank you—what did you say your name was again?”

“Remus. Um, also, do you know Tonks’s address?”

Fifteen minutes later, Remus is back in the driver’s seat of the Subaru. With shaking hands, he starts the engine, sucking in a deep breath. _You can do this,_ he tells himself. _Just drop them off, go home, and the night will be over._

He manages to maneuver his way to Tonks’s home, a brick house with a sloping roof, without any major incidents. 

“Thank you for the ride,” Tonks says, hopping out of the car. “And for, you know, saving me from Ludo and everything else.”

“No problem,” Remus replies.

“Yes, thank you, Remus,” Fleur says, stepping out of the car as well. Remus glances at her in surprise.

“I can drive you home too,” he says, but she shakes her head. 

“It’s fine,” she says firmly, holding up her phone. “I’ll stay here with Tonks for a while. My mom can pick me up later.”

“Are you sure?” Remus asks, and she nods.

“I’m sure,” she says. “Thanks again for the ride.”

Once both Tonks and Fleur have disappeared into the house, Remus lets out a sigh of relief. Then, he makes the mistake of checking his phone, which cheerfully informs him that it’s now 2:32 in the morning. 

“Shit,” he breathes. “Shit, shit, shit.” He’s blown past his curfew by more than two hours, and he has five missed calls from his mother, as well as seventeen increasingly frantic texts. 

He drives back home as quickly as he can, pressing down hard on the gas pedal and pausing as briefly as he can at stop signs. When he finally screeches to a stop in front of his house, the lights downstairs are off, and for a minute, he convinces himself that his parents are probably asleep by now anyway. Maybe he can persuade them in the morning that he somehow managed to get home, walk upstairs, and go to bed without making a sound.

Quietly, he turns his key in the door, slips off his shoes, and tiptoes his way upstairs. The moment before he walks into his bedroom, he commends himself for his stealth.

When he turns open the door, though, he finds his father sitting on his bed, his face illuminated only by lamplight.

“Hello, Remus,” his father says, his tone hard. “Welcome back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update, but i hope you enjoyed this! kudos + comments fuel me! <3


	10. november i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus has a few Important Talks with his parents. Also, he goes to a college interview.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m so, so sorry about how late this chapter is! i got super caught up with school, extracurriculars, and work. i hope it’s worth the wait, though!

“Do you know what time it is?” Remus’s father paces around the bedroom, his hands clasped behind his back. “It’s three in the morning.”

Wisely, Remus doesn’t say that it’s actually 2:40 in the morning, which, while close to three in the morning, is not technically three in the morning.

“Do you remember what time your mother told you to be home?”

“Midnight,” Remus says quietly, fiddling with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. With a jolt, he realizes that he’s still wearing Peter’s father’s jersey, and he makes a mental note to get that fixed as soon as he can. “Dad, I’m sorry—”

“Do you know how worried your mother and I were?” His father cuts him off, continuing to pace. “We’ve been waiting for hours. You can’t imagine what we thought might have happened to you. Your mother and I kept trying to call you, and you didn’t pick up _once._ She even called Mrs. Pettigrew, Remus, and when she told us she didn’t know where you were, do you know what the look on your mother’s face was like? She thought you got into an accident, Remus, and that you were hurt. She thought you were in the _hospital._ Can you even begin to _imagine_ how worried we were?”

 _I probably can now,_ Remus doesn’t say. And, to be perfectly honest, he can’t quite imagine his father being as worried as his mother, but that’s also something he definitely shouldn’t say. “I wasn’t drinking or anything,” he protests weakly instead. “I drove really carefully.”

His father sighs, sitting back down onto Remus’s bed. “It doesn’t matter if _you_ weren’t. It’s Halloween night, Remus. I was a high schooler once too. I know how it goes. One person runs a stop sign or forgets to signal when they make a left turn, and bam. Two broken ribs and a $10,000 hospital bill for EMT services in your bank account.” 

There are any number of things Remus could say. He could tell his father that he was just trying to get Fleur and Tonks home safely. He could tell his father that he managed to fall asleep at the party, erasing both a good three hours from his memory and his ability to remember how to check the time on his phone. He could tell his father that he really, truly, didn’t realize how late it had gotten until five minutes before he pulled into the driveway. 

All he can muster, though, is a weak “I’m sorry.” 

“I know you are,” his father replies. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you missed curfew by two hours, didn’t call either of us to let us know where you were, and made us think you got into a car accident.”

To be honest, all of those accusations seem more like assumptions to Remus, but it’s not like they’re entirely untrue. “I’m really, really sorry. I shouldn’t have done that to you or Mom,” he says, hoping he sounds sincere enough that his father will take pity on him and let Remus go to sleep. 

“Yes, well, I’m glad to see that you understand your mistakes,” his father says, standing back up. “But your mother and I can’t just let this go. We need you to never do something like this again.”

“I won’t,” Remus says quickly. “I promise.”

“We need more than your word, Remus. Before your mother went to bed, she and I discussed suitable punishments, and we decided that it would be reasonable for you to be grounded for a week.”

“Oh.” To be honest, that’s better than Remus would have expected. It’s not like he leaves the house enough for a grounding to mean anything. 

“We’ll also be confiscating your phone and your laptop—”

“What?” Remus can’t even try to keep the incredulity out of his voice. “I mean, I need my laptop for school, though. And I need my phone to communicate with you and Mom. Like, wasn’t that the whole point of this? I need to communicate more with you guys? You can’t just—take them away.”

“You can use my old laptop for the week,” his father says dismissively. “We’ll make sure it runs all your lectures and discussion groups smoothly, and then everything will be fine. You’re grounded, so not having your phone shouldn’t make a difference.”

His father’s old laptop is a Macbook from nearly a decade ago. It has the processing power of a leaking AA Battery, and there’s no chance in hell he can download Discord on it without the entire laptop crashing and blue screening so badly that it will never power up again. 

It hits him then that he hasn’t spoken to Sirius in nearly half a day, the longest they’ve gone without messaging each other in more than a month. He can’t even imagine what it would be like to not talk to Sirius for an entire week—days of blankness, probably, long stretches of time simply slipping away. The lack of Discord seems even more pressing now.

“Okay, I get why you’re taking away my phone, but why my laptop too?” Remus asks, trying to keep any notes of panic from rising up. “I only ever use it for school anyway.” Lies, lies, blatant lies, but his father wouldn’t know otherwise. 

“Well, we thought it would teach you a lesson better than a grounding alone could. Besides, you spend too much on that computer anyway,” his father replies. “There are better things you can do with your time, I’m sure.”

So that’s what this is about. He’s not social enough, not responsible enough, never enough—at least not for his father. It doesn’t have anything to do with him being out late at all. 

A plethora of arguments are on the tip of his tongue—that he’d protested to his mother that he couldn’t drive, and if only she’d driven him to Peter’s house and back from the party, none of this would have happened; that he _was_ being responsible by trying to look after his friends; that communication would be easier if his father made an effort to actually talk to Remus on a daily basis and not only when Remus managed to somehow disappoint him. That he really, truly needs his laptop to keep in touch with the few friends he has. That even if he didn’t have his laptop, he still wouldn’t be the perfect son his father wants, some math prodigy who will follow in his footsteps at Harvard or MIT. 

But Remus has never learned the fine art of argumentation. Instead, he watches as his father shakes his head slowly, heading for the bedroom door.

Before he closes the door behind him, his father looks back at Remus. “I know this punishment might sound harsh right now, but it won’t be that bad.” And then, his tone softer, “Good night, Remus. Sleep tight.”

* * *

It is exactly that bad. 

Remus doesn’t know how anyone in the past survived without having access to social media, to be honest. It’s gotten to the point where he even enjoys commenting on videos he’s assigned for class; at least that brings him some degree of digital human interaction. His father’s laptop can’t even run a YouTube video without crashing. He’s practically wasting away from sheer boredom. 

The only tab he’s managed to consistently keep open is his Gmail inbox—which is why he nearly jumps out of his seat when a particularly loud incoming email notification comes through his earphones, the ping deafening. Quickly, he clicks on the offending email, skimming its contents eagerly.

_Hello Remus,_

_My name is Barty Crouch, Sr., and I understand that you have applied to Brown University under its binding Early Decision program. I have been assigned as your alumni interviewer._

_To introduce myself, I graduated from Brown in 1994 with a degree in English and Comparative Literature. Since then, I have been working as an opinion journalist for_ The Wall Street Journal, _as well as an author of both fictional and nonfictional narratives and long-form pieces. I have bylines in_ The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Bulwark, _and others._

_I would appreciate if you could, at your earliest convenience, email me some times you are available this week to sit down and talk with me at Starbucks about your goals in this application cycle and your Brown application. I look forward to speaking with you soon, and I wish you luck throughout this application cycle._

_Best,_

_Barty Crouch, Sr.  
_ [ _barty.crouch@brown.edu_ ](mailto:barty.crouch@brown.edu)

It takes everything in Remus’s body to stop him from screaming into a pillow, either out of sheer anticipation or relief. Probably both, to be honest. 

He knows, logically, that getting an interview doesn’t mean much—almost everyone does one for schools like Brown, after all, no matter how qualified they are—but it does mean that he’s not out of the running. It means that he’s not a terrible applicant, and at this point, Remus will take that. And while Remus would never call himself a particularly eloquent speaker, after countless dinner parties with his father’s colleagues, he figures that he’s at least decently equipped to hold a conversation with an accomplished adult. 

Even better, he’ll finally get his phone back, and a few days early at that. After all, he can’t even begin to imagine a world where his mother would let Remus leave the house without some means of communication, and unless they invent a portable fax machine, he doesn’t see any way for that to happen that doesn’t result in the safe and sound return of his cell phone. 

He quickly sends out a reply, letting Mr. Crouch know that he’s available the very next day—after all, he might as well rip off the band-aid and get this over with as quickly as possible. He waits on the edge of his seat for Mr. Crouch’s response—thankfully, in a matter of mere moments, he replies, agreeing to meet with Remus tomorrow and sending along his phone number as well—and then Remus bounds downstairs, almost tripping down the stairs in his haste. He really needs to get some better slippers. 

In the living room, his mother is watching the local news, staring intently at a weatherwoman describing the coming week’s storm forecast. When she sees him, she smiles at him broadly, almost artificially, as if she knows exactly how bored Remus feels but doesn’t exactly want to acknowledge that. 

“Up for some MSNBC, Remus?” his mother asks, patting the seat next to her on the couch. “Rachel’s going to be on in a few minutes.”

Remus shakes his head, but he sits down next to her anyway. “I got an interview request for Brown today,” he says, trying to sound as casual as possible. “It’s with a journalist. His name is Barty Crouch.”

“Oh, Remus, that’s amazing!” she gushes. “When is it?”

“I asked if he’s available tomorrow, and he said that he is,” Remus responds. “He wants to meet at Starbucks—you know, the one in the center of town?” Almost immediately, his mother’s face falls.

“Remus, isn’t that a little soon?” she asks, almost tentatively. “Don’t you want to prepare a bit?”

It shouldn’t hit a nerve, but it does. “I’m already prepared, Mom,” he replies. “I’ve looked through a ton of interview questions, and I know what I’m going to say.” _Why am I applying to Brown? Because I want a well-rounded liberal arts education that offers me academic freedom, and given my interest in English and my curiosity about the arts, Brown would allow me to explore both through the Open Curriculum, particularly in conjunction with its joint classes at RISD. What do I plan to do at Brown? Staff the student radio show, join the literary magazine, and maybe try out for an a capella group or two. Where do I plan to go after Brown? Hopefully,_ The New Yorker; _realistically, grad school, and then academia._ Yeah, he knows almost exactly what he needs to say already. 

His mother hums noncommittally. “Well, if you’re sure.” 

“I’m sure,” Remus says. Better sooner than later, in any case. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk about.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I’m going to need my phone tomorrow, but I’m still grounded,” Remus starts. “So I was wondering if I could have it back?” He puts on his best beatific smile. “I’ll only use it to call you or Dad after the interview, I swear.”

Unfortunately, his mother shakes her head firmly. “You’re grounded for a week, Remus. You still have two days left.”

“But I need _something_ I can use to communicate with you and Dad,” Remus presses. “You know, so I get picked up from the Starbucks and everything?”

“What about a flip phone?” his mother counters, and Remus’s heart instantly sinks down into his stomach. “You can use my old Nokia! It still works—I just booted it up last week. I can add a few minutes to it, and then it’ll be as good as new.”

“Look, Mom, why am I being punished in the first place?” Remus asks, sighing, finally biting the bullet. “I’ve learned my lesson already. I need my laptop and phone back; it takes forever for anything to even load on Dad’s laptop, and I barely even know how to use a flip phone. Again, I’m really, really sorry for not communicating with you guys. I promise I’ll do better in the future.”

“Well, you need to show us that you can do better first,” his mother replies. “And you need to understand how worried your father was.”

“Wait, how worried _Dad_ was?” 

His mother nods. “I told him that you didn’t need to be punished so harshly, but he was insistent upon it. He said that he didn’t want there to even be a chance for you to do something like that again. You wouldn’t believe how worried he was for you that night. Both of us were.”

“Dad only worries about me when it’s convenient for him,” Remus snorts. Judging by the look on his mother’s face, that was a thought better kept to himself.

“How could you say that?” she asks, sounding genuinely crestfallen. “Remus, your father loves you. He’s always worrying about you.”

“He doesn’t show it very well.”

“He’s trying,” she replies. A thoughtful look crosses over her face. “Have I ever told you how your father and I met?”

“Yes, a thousand times,” Remus says, sighing. 

“Well, humor me and let me tell it again, will you?”

“Sure.”

“It was right after my junior year at UVA. I was staying in Charlottesville to do some research at the law school over the summer, so I was living in a little apartment in the middle of town with my friends. Your father was home from MIT, interning for IBM during the week and living back here in Fairfax on the weekends. Well, his best friend from high school, Jimmy, was in my class at UVA, and I happened to know Jimmy through Hillel. Somehow, Jimmy got it into his head that your father and I would be a good pair, and he set us up.

"I wasn’t on board at first. After all, it wasn’t like I knew anything about your father. But Jimmy convinced me. Lyall was a good guy, he said, smart and dependable. He was sure that we’d get along. 

"Well, what do you know? Our first date was absolutely terrible. Your father could barely get a word out, he was stammering so much, and I kept thinking to myself, who on Earth is this guy, and why did Jimmy think we’d get along at all? It only started getting better at the very end. I ordered a chocolate lava cake for dessert, and somehow, I managed to spill the whole thing over my dress.”

“And then Dad made a stupid joke about how volcanoes always end up exploding lava everywhere in the end, even if they’re chocolate,” Remus finishes. “And then you went on another date, and another one, and then, three years later, you got married.”

His mother smiles fondly. “Yes, we did. But Remus, the point I’m trying to make is that our first date went so terribly because your father was worrying about every little detail. He’s always been like that. He’ll worry about if a curtain’s hanging right, or if his shirt is buttoned up neatly enough, or if he’s saying the right thing.”

“Sure wish he worried about me more.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to get at, Remus,” she sighs. “You know, Remus, I think you and your father are incredibly similar.”

“How?” Remus asks incredulously. “We have nothing in common.”

“Both of you are worriers,” she says simply. “Both of you are kind, and both of you try to do the right thing, even if it’s hard. I think that’s why you argue so much. He sees himself in you.”

“Well, he doesn’t exactly tell me that.”

“And you’re so good at communication, Mr. Ignore-Five-Phone-Calls?” she cocks an eyebrow, and Remus rolls his eyes.

“Fine,” he relents. “If you want to talk about me ignoring phone calls, by the way—”

“You’re taking the Nokia,” she says firmly, and Remus groans. 

* * *

Starbucks isn’t exactly Remus’s coffee shop of choice, but he breathes in the smell of coffee deeply when he walks in anyway, gazing around his surroundings—the holiday decorations put up a month too early, the cheery chalkboard signs advertising incredibly unhealthy Frappuccinos, and then, in the corner, Barty Crouch, Sr., who Remus recognizes instantly after stalking his LinkedIn page last night. Sitting next to Mr. Crouch is an unfamiliar face, though, a thin, reedy-faced blond teen. For a moment, Remus wonders if he’s come to the interview too soon, but then Mr. Crouch waves him over, a small smile on his face.

“Nice to meet you, Remus,” Mr. Crouch says, shaking Remus’s hand vigorously. “Feel free to buy a drink—my treat.” He hands Remus his credit card, and it takes every bone in Remus’s body to stop him from actually jumping out of excitement. 

Two minutes and a small hot chocolate later, Remus slides into the seat across from Mr. Crouch. Curiously, the blond teen is still there, a sullen look on his face.

“Good choice,” Mr. Crouch comments, gesturing to the hot chocolate. “Much better than their coffee.”

“I’m not much of a coffee drinker, honestly,” Remus says, taking care to smile broadly but not too broadly. “It doesn’t really do anything for me.”

“Oh, me neither,” Mr. Crouch replies. “Though I wish to God it did. It’d do wonders for my sleep schedule.”

Remus smiles, his shoulders relaxing. He has a good feeling about the interview already.

“Oh, by the way, this is my son, Barty,” Mr. Crouch adds, gesturing to the teen next to him. “You don’t mind if he stays, do you? He’s a sophomore at Thomas Jefferson, and I thought it’d be good for him to get some insight into the process and how I conduct interviews early on.” 

“Um, sure,” Remus says, taken aback. “Hi, Barty.” He waves at Barty, who barely acknowledges Remus with a slight nod.

“So, the way I usually go about doing these interviews is fairly straightforward,” Mr. Crouch says. “I’ll try to get to know you through some questions about Brown and your application, and then you can ask me anything about my time at Brown.”

“Sounds good.”

“So, first question, and I’m sure it’s one you’ve prepared for—tell me about yourself, Remus.”

“Well, I’m an aspiring poet who really loves Brown for its incredibly strong creative writing program,” Remus begins, encouraged by Mr. Crouch’s nods. “See, I’ve been homeschooled for all of high school, and while I’ve had the opportunity to engage with my peers through online literary publications and volunteering, as well as the virtual classroom, I obviously haven’t had much access to literary workshops or anything like that. When it comes to creative writing and literature, Brown would open up a whole new world of possibilities for me, especially with the Open Curriculum, _The Brown Noser,_ and everything else.”

“Great, great,” Mr. Crouch says. “You know, I wish Barty was like that. He never wants to branch out into writing or the humanities. All he does is do his little science experiments in the basement. I ask him, Barty, why don’t you go and join the school newspaper? Why don’t you go do debate? And he never does any of it.” He fixes his son with a stern gaze, who seems to visibly shrink.

Remus smiles uncomfortably, not quite sure what he can or should say. “I don’t think I’d like debate very much either. I’m not a big fan of public speaking.”

“Oh, neither am I,” Mr. Crouch replies. “But it’s the principle of it, you see. Well, Remus, second question for you—what’s your favorite class that you’ve taken in high school?”

“Junior year English, definitely,” Remus says. “I think in a lot of English classes, you read the same books over and over again—you know, _Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye,_ and all that. But my teacher really encouraged us to branch out into world literature, and we spent weeks just dissecting and poring over every single work. I loved _Signs Preceding the End of the World,_ and I think my second-favorite was probably _Persepolis._ ”

“Oh, I love Herrera,” Mr. Crouch comments. “His use of prose is absolutely stunning. I wish Barty would read more. I don’t think he’s read a single book for class this year, to be honest. He just SparkNotes it all.”

“I read them,” Barty mumbles, so quietly that he can barely be heard.

“You do?” A look of mock-surprise comes across Mr. Crouch’s face. “Well, then why are you still getting B’s and C’s on all of your essays?”

“It’s a hard class, Dad,” Barty says, louder this time. “I’m trying my best, okay? I can’t help that I’m not good at English like you are.”

“You just need to try harder,” Mr. Crouch says, his tone firm. He turns back to Remus, a jovial smile back on his face. “Now, where were we?”

“Um, you really like Yuri Herrera?”

“Right, of course. Yes, when you get to Brown, I highly recommend that you take a class in Mexican literature. We desperately need to expand the Western canon. Now, Remus, what has been the greatest challenge for you during high school?”

For a second, Remus debates between going with the safe answer and going with the honest one. Finally, he decides that he doesn’t have much to lose anyway, and he might as well tell the truth. “I think the hardest part has just been homeschooling in general, honestly. It’s been hard to forge really strong connections with others, even outside of school. That’s why I’m really looking forward to college, and especially Brown, because Brown really values community-building and finding common ground.”

Mr. Crouch nods. “Yes, the Brown community is always there for you, especially after college. That’s how I got my first job at a newspaper, actually—a fellow Brown alum helped put in a good word for me. Now, if only Barty here cared about that. Did you know, Remus, that he doesn’t even try to make friends? No, Barty here’s a loner, Remus.” Mr. Crouch shakes his head sadly. “I don’t even know how he’s going to get through college like this.”

“That’s not true!” Barty bursts out, so loudly that at least three heads turn towards them. Remus can’t even hide his wince. “That’s not true at all, Dad! You just don’t give enough of a shit about me to even notice! You don’t care that I have perfect grades in everything besides English, or that I’m winning medals in math competitions, or that I’m probably one of the top students at TJ! Well, fuck you, and fuck you for making me come to this bullshit interview!”

Remus sees it just before it happens—in an instant, Barty flips over the table, upending both Mr. Crouch’s drink and Remus’s hot chocolate, and then storms out, slamming the glass doors of the Starbucks behind him. Remus feels incredibly sorry for everyone else in the Starbucks, most acutely the workers who will probably have to refit the doors to their hinges.

“I’m so sorry, Remus,” Mr. Crouch says, rolling his eyes. “Barty just _has_ to always throw a tantrum. Now, where were we?”

“Um, shouldn’t you go after him?” Remus asks tentatively. 

“Oh, he’ll come back,” Mr. Crouch says dismissively. “He just wants attention.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Crouch, I think you should, um, probably go check on your son,” Remus says, trying his best to sound firm. “Just to make sure everything’s fine. He looked really upset.”

“Oh, all right, Remus,” Mr. Crouch says, smiling. “If you insist. Well, if you’d like to know more about Brown, feel free to send me an email—you have my contact, right?” Remus nods. “Good, good. Well, have a good day, Remus, and I’m sorry again about this whole debacle.” In truth, he sounds less sorry than annoyed.

The moment Mr. Crouch steps outside of the Starbucks, Remus lets himself breathe out a sigh of relief. Then, slowly, he makes his way over to the utensil counter, hoping that once he’s mopped up all the spilled hot chocolate, there will somehow still be enough left in his cup to drink. 

* * *

“So, how did the interview go?” his mother asks as Remus slides into the Subaru, fastening himself into the passenger’s seat.

“It was—interesting,” Remus says, treading lightly. “I mean, I answered the questions.” Which wasn’t a very hard task, given that Mr. Crouch only managed to ask three questions in total. 

“Well, that’s good,” his mother replies. “I’m sure you did great.”

“Maybe,” Remus says doubtfully. Even if his answers were solid, he’s fairly sure that on a scale from one to ten, having your interviewer antagonize his son for the majority of the interview and then having that same interviewer leave early to chase down that same son, ending the interview abruptly, is probably a two at best. As the minutes pass, it’s dawning on him that there are very few ways that interview could have gone worse.

“I’m sure you did,” his mother says firmly. “Now, on another note, while you were gone, your father and I rediscussed your punishment—”

“You did?” Remus exclaims, trying to not sound too excited. 

“We did,” she confirms. “And we’ve agreed to shorten it. You’ll be getting your phone and laptop back tonight, as long as you promise to never break curfew again—and that you’ll always pick up our calls from here on out.”

“I promise,” Remus says firmly. “I completely, definitely promise.” Finally, something not-totally-terrible about this crappy day.

“I had a feeling you’d say that,” she smiles. “Well, take a look on your bed once we get home. You’ll find a nice surprise there.”

The moment they pull into their driveway, Remus bounds into the house and up the stairs, where, true to his mother’s word, he finds his phone and laptop arranged primly upon his pillows. If Remus was a more dramatic person, he’d embrace his laptop, hugging it like a long-lost lover. Instead, he simply clutches it tightly before setting it onto his desk and immediately opening up Discord.

The moment Discord loads, he comes face-to-face with nearly a hundred missed notifications. Thankfully, not all of them are from Sirius—a few are mass pings from AAC, and two are from a random junior who wants Remus’s advice on what APs to take next year. Unfortunately, the majority of them _are_ from Sirius, who, judging from the content from his messages, is rightfully confused as to why Remus suddenly disappeared off the face of the Earth.

 **moony** (Today at 6:03 PM)  
hi  
i’m so so sorry for going awol  
i can explain on a call  
if you’re free right now?

 **padfoot** (Today at 6:04 PM)  
oh  
yeah sure

As usual, Sirius looks perfect—bright red sweatshirt, his hair loose around his shoulders—but his eyes look tired. He waves limply at Remus, and Remus waves back.

“How’ve you been?” Remus asks, feeling strangely awkward.

“Good, good,” Sirius says. 

“Um, how’s school going?”

“It’s been good.”

“Anything new going on?” Remus asks, searching desperately for something to say. Slowly and painfully, an ache grows in his chest.

“No, not really.”

An awkward silence falls over them, and Remus swears that he can hear crickets. In reality, no longer than half a minute at most has passed, but in practice, it feels like a lifetime. 

“Um, so I don’t want to sound rude or anything, but is there a reason you haven’t been on Discord lately?” Sirius finally asks. 

“Right.” Remus blows out a puff of air, wondering how he should say it. “So I went to a Halloween party, got grounded for missing curfew, and got my laptop and phone taken away until today. I swear, I wasn’t trying to ignore you or anything. I couldn’t talk to any of my friends, not just you. I’m sorry for not letting you know sooner.”

Sirius laughs, and suddenly, the tension is broken. “Remus, you didn’t tell me you were such a rebel,” Sirius says, his eyes shining. 

“I’m not,” Remus protests. “Not at all. It was an accident. I just lost track of time.”

“Sure,” Sirius drawls. “You just ‘lost track of time,’ huh?”

“Yes, I actually did!”

“I’m sorry if I sounded like I was accusing you of anything,” Sirius says, his voice sincere. “I thought I might have done something wrong, you know? And maybe you just decided to ignore me instead of actually telling me where I fucked up.”

“What?”

“Remember? We were talking about how I finally sent in my Yale app, and you sounded kind of angry about it,” Sirius explains. 

“Right.” To tell the truth, Remus barely remembers that conversation. “Well, if I was mad, I’m not anymore.”

“Thank God,” Sirius replies. “I mean, the other possible explanation was that you just decided to delete Discord or something because you were done with apps.”

“People do that?”

“All the time,” Sirius confirms. “Once they’re done with their essays, they decide that they don’t really need AAC anymore, you know? And, I mean, you especially. Your Brown supplements are pretty incredible, Remus.”

“No way,” Remus says, raising his eyebrows. “You’re lying.”

“They’re probably some of the best essays I’ve read this year,” Sirius says. “I mean, granted, a lot of people don’t even bother to run their essays through Grammarly before sending them over to me to edit, but still.”

“Well, even if they’re that good, that doesn’t matter, because my interview was a fucking disaster,” Remus says, shrugging. “I might as well just give up on Brown now.”

“Most interviews go better than you think they did,” Sirius says. “In any case, they barely make a difference.”

“Well, do most interviews end with your interviewer running out the door to chase after his angry son?”

“Wait, what?” 

“My interviewer ran out of the interview early to chase after his son,” Remus repeats. “For some reason, he decided to bring along his son, and then he kept making these _comments_ about how his son wasn’t good enough, and then his son got mad, screamed at him, flipped over our table, and ran out.”

“Huh.” Sirius leans back in his chair, shaking his head. “Can’t say I’ve heard that one before.”

“So there’s obviously no way I’m getting into Brown,” Remus says, trying to sound flippant and ignoring the sinking feeling in his heart. 

“I mean, it’s not your fault that your interviewer turned out to be an asshole,” Sirius replies. He hums thoughtfully. “I think—give me a second, I might have an idea.” Sirius types furiously on his keyboard, peering thoughtfully at his screen, until he seems to find what he’s looking for. “Right, okay. If you have an interviewer that, like, manages to fuck up super badly, you should report them to the school. That way, the school knows that they shouldn’t assign that interviewer to anyone again.”

“But wouldn’t that, you know, make me look bad?” Remus asks. “Like I’m reporting them because of sour grapes or something.”

SIrius shakes his head. “No way. If anything, Brown’s more scared that the interviewer makes them look bad than anything else. Hell, they might even give you a whole new interview to make up for it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Totally,” Sirius replies. “I’m pretty sure something like this happened in AAC last year—well, not the same thing, obviously, but one girl got a Harvard interviewer that was like, super racist and terrible, and she reported him. She ended up getting in, actually.”

“Okay,” Remus says slowly. “So what do I have to do?”

“Send out an email to your Brown admissions officer, letting them know what happened in the interview, and I’m sure they’ll tell you where to go from there,” Sirius says. “It’ll all work out. I promise.” He smiles at Remus brilliantly, and yet again, Remus is struck by the realization of just how much he likes Sirius. He can’t even call it a crush anymore. A crush, after all, is something that’s fleeting, ephemeral—something that lasts for a few weeks, a few weeks of scribbling out sappy love letters in his head, but then, it slowly dissipates until all that’s left is platonic fondness. It’s been nearly four months, and whatever Remus feels for Sirius only seems to get stronger. Being away from him for a week has only reaffirmed that.

He wants to write poetry about Sirius. He wants to compare Sirius to the call of birds in the springtime, or the first snowflake that falls in the winter, or the turning of the autumn leaves. He wants to write hundreds of poems about Sirius and then throw them away because no word, no sentence, no metaphor can ever do Sirius justice.

Remus smiles back at Sirius and ignores the growing realization that he is totally, utterly fucked.

* * *

“You know, I didn’t think people who are homeschooled could be grounded,” Lily says for what must be the fiftieth time. Unlike Sirius, when Remus told Lily why he’d ignored all of her messages for the past week, she just burst into laughter. For some reason, she thinks that his grounding is the funniest thing to ever happen. 

“Like I said, it wasn’t just that I was grounded,” Remus sighs. 

“Yeah, yeah, laptop taken away, phone confiscated, whatever,” Lily says, batting his words away. “This is just so funny, though. I feel like you don’t understand how funny this is.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“Sorry,” Lily says, before collapsing into giggles again. “I just—homeschooled! Grounded! I mean, how do you ground someone who already doesn’t leave the house for anything?”

“Yeah, my pain is absolutely hilarious.”

“Fine, I’ll stop,” Lily says, sighing dramatically. “Okay, seriously—what’ve you been up to?”

“Absolutely nothing, since I’ve been grounded,” Remus replies. “What about you?” From the way Lily is fidgeting in her seat, there’s something she’s been absolutely dying to tell Remus for the better part of ten minutes. 

“Okay, let me set the scene for you,” Lily says, affecting the tone of a sports announcer. “Halloween night. I’m at the Halloween dance, and I’m rocking my Batgirl costume. Marley’s redyed her hair to be Harley Quinn. The music is good, the food is passable, and we’re all having a good time. But then it happens.” She pauses dramatically.

“What happens?” Remus asks, humoring her. 

“I see Sev,” she shudders. “He’s in a corner, and he’s, you guessed it, dressed as Batman.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“Oh, fuck, is right. See, Sev ‘deduces’ that because I’m dressed as Batgirl, that means I have ‘latent romantic feelings’ for him or some bullshit like that, so he decides to spend most of the night following me and Marley around, trying to talk to me even after I told him I didn’t have anything to say to him. He just wouldn’t leave me alone.”

Remus winces. “Yikes.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t fun, but you know, I was dealing with it. But then—God, how do I say this—Potter kind of jumped in?” Lily says, stumbling over her words and dropping the announcer act. “He told Sev to get lost, and they argued for a little bit, but then Sev actually left me alone for the rest of the night.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. Potter asked me if I was okay, and I told him I could have handled it myself, if it came down to it, and then he actually apologized for overstepping his bounds.” 

“That’s...unexpected.”

“It was! And then we started talking about stupid stuff, like which Batman movie is the best and if Zack Snyder is just bad or actually the worst, and—I don’t know. It was fun. He walked me back to the dorms, and—and I didn’t hate it. Which is insane, because I hate the idea of having, like, a Prince Charming taking me home and always trying to save me, you know? But I didn’t hate it when Potter did it.” Lily gnaws at her bottom lip. “I’m just so confused, and God, Remus, I think I might like Potter? Like, actually like him?”

“You _think_ you like him?”

“Okay, fine, I might have a crush on Potter,” Lily admits. “And I hate it! I don’t even understand it!”

Remus shrugs helplessly. “Feelings are hard?”

“That’s all you have to say? Feelings are hard?”

Remus shrugs again. “Feelings are hard.” Maybe someone else could help Lily work through her emotions more productively, but Remus can’t even decide what he wants to do with the growing lump in his chest that’s labeled “Sirius.” He’s absolutely the worst person for this job. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos and comments fuel me! <3 sorry again for how late this chapter is—i’ll be updating weekly again from here on out, though!


	11. november ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus comes to a stunning realization, goes to another college interview, and has a talk with Lily.

**r/collegeadmissions**  
Posted by u/parkour4lyfe 5 hours ago | 579 points

**Did anyone else just realize that there’s less than a month left before early results come out?**

Like is it just me? I feel like I submitted my apps yesterday and now I’m obsessively checking my portals like there’s no tomorrow. I seriously can’t believe it’s almost December. 

Honestly, this entire year feels like it’s lasted less than a few days. At times, mostly when I was writing my essays, I wanted time to stop altogether. Now, I don’t even know what I want. Do I want time to pass as quickly as possible so I can get it all over with, or would I rather have more time to wait? Would I rather know or not know?

In any case, I don’t feel ready for this at all. Please tell me I’m not the only one that feels this way?

* * *

“The problem with Thanksgiving food as an entire concept is that there’s only two objectively good ones, and we’re all just pretending that everything else—like, the turkey and the green beans and the stuffing—is actually enjoyable when it’s mediocre at best,” Remus argues. “Have you ever looked at a slice of roast turkey and thought to yourself, ‘I can’t wait to eat this?’ You haven’t. _No one_ has. You eat it because you’re supposed to, even though the best form of turkey is actually deli turkey. Or stuffing! Has anyone ever eaten stuffing on a non-Thanksgiving day?”

“I can’t even tell you how wrong you are,” Sirius replies, shaking his head. “Look, fine, turkey’s not that good, but you can eat it at other times too. I’m pretty sure British people have it for Christmas or something.”

“Well, they’re British. Half of British food is just gravy on bland potatoes.” Not that Remus would know, obviously, since he’s never actually been to Britain, but he’s pretty sure he’s correct.

“Fine, but that’s not my point,” Sirius says, jabbing a finger dramatically at Remus. “My point—the most important point—is that the other Thanksgiving food is actually good! The stuffing _is_ good, and we should normalize having it on days that aren’t Thanksgiving, you know? Mashed potatoes are fucking awesome. And fine, pumpkin pie is mediocre, but pecan pie? Pecan pie is fantastic.”

“Stuffing, sure, but I don’t even think mashed potatoes are really a Thanksgiving food,” Remus counters. “I mean, IKEA sells them year-round.”

“Okay, but if I asked you what holiday you most associate with mashed potatoes, you’d say Thanksgiving, right?” 

“Fine,” Remus sighs, shrugging in surrender. “Your argument isn’t entirely invalid, I guess.”

“Victory!” Sirius cheers, pumping a fist in the air. 

“You really have a thing for winning stupid debates, huh.”

“Well, yeah,” Sirius says, rolling his eyes. “Why else would I be part of Model UN? We’re all just nerds with a persistent need to always be right. I mean, I don’t even like Thanksgiving that much, to be honest.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah. I’m probably not even going to go back home for it this year.”

“Wait, why not?” Thanksgiving isn’t even one of Remus’s top five holidays, but it’s also not one of his bottom five (see: Halloween). Sure, he dislikes most of the food, but he’s always been a fan of the Macy’s Parade (because who doesn’t love a huge Snoopy flying over the New York City skyline?), and despite the stereotypes associated with it, Thanksgiving is one of the only days where Remus can totally count on to not have any disagreements with his parents. On Thanksgiving, his parents seem to consciously make an effort to be kind, sometimes even overly so. 

“It’s just not worth it,” Sirius says. “I mean, what’s the use? Either we have a ridiculously huge dinner that ends with me arguing with my dad and making everyone else angry, or my dad decides to go by himself to some fucking business party with his friends and Thanksgiving dinner is cold takeout. I’d rather just not deal with that bullshit, you know?” 

“But what about, like, the Macy’s Parade and everything? Don’t you live in the city?” Remus is aware that he probably sounds like someone who read a New York City tour book once and now exclusively calls it “The Big Apple,” but Sirius thankfully takes it all in stride. 

“The parade’s cool, but I wouldn’t be seeing it in person even if I did go back home for Thanksgiving,” Sirius replies. “It’s way too cold for that. My mom, Reg, and I went to the parade once, back when I was eight or nine, and I swear, I couldn’t feel my hands by the end of it all. If I do watch the parade, it’ll be on TV, and I can do that anywhere. I don’t need to actually go home for that.”

“So what’ll you do instead?”

“I’ll just stay over at school,” Sirius says flippantly. “That’s what I did last year. None of the international students can go home, so there’s always a dinner held for them. It’s good food too. I had the best dan dan noodles ever at last year’s dinner. Of course, even if the food was actual dogshit, it’d still be better than going back home.” 

“That’s good?” Remus says tentatively.

“Yeah. Say what you will about Hogwarts, but you can’t say they don’t try.”

For a moment, Sirius’s words barely register in Remus’s mind. Then, in an instant, they flow through Remus like a full-body shock. “Wait. Did you just say Hogwarts?” He can barely get the words out, so utterly bewildered and stunned he feels. 

“Yeah, Hogwarts. I go there?” Sirius raises his eyebrows, looking confused—which makes two of them, at least. “Haven’t I told you that before?”

Lily goes to a swanky boarding school called Hogwarts. Hogwarts is in Massachusetts. Sirius goes to a boarding school in Massachusetts. Sirius’s boarding school is Hogwarts.

One of Lily’s fellow prefects is Potter. Sirius’s friend, James, does duties that are suspiciously similar to a prefect’s. Potter had—has—a crush on Lily. James has liked the same, seemingly unattainable girl for years. 

Lily has a friend called Marley. Sirius has a friend called Marlene. 

Lily and Sirius go to the same school. Lily and Potter go to the same school. _Sirius_ and Potter go to the same school. Sirius and Potter and Lily _all_ go to the same school.

But maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe there’s two boarding schools named Hogwarts in Massachusetts, and they have two incredibly similar student bodies and traditions. That’s possible, right?

“Out of curiosity, um, what’s James’s last name?” Remus asks, trying to not sound as shaken as he feels.

“James?” Sirius frowns. “Why do you want to know his last name?”

“Just curious. I’m not planning to, like, dox him or anything, don’t worry.”

“Uh, it’s Potter. James Potter?” Sirius says, sounding incredibly confused. 

Not a coincidence, then, apparently. Wonderful. Just wonderful. 

The strangest thing about this revelation isn’t that it’s incredibly shocking and has just made Remus reconsider the scale of the universe—though it has, to be clear. The strangest thing is how little this actually changes. 

Yes, almost all of the most important people in Remus’s life know each other. Yes, the world is apparently incredibly small. Yes, it’s difficult to reconcile the fact that Sirius is both one of the smartest, funniest, most compassionate people Remus knows and someone Lily has been complaining about to him for the past three years. 

But this doesn’t change any of the fundamentals. It doesn’t bring Remus any closer to or farther away from Sirius. It doesn’t change the odds that Remus will ever actually meet Sirius in person. It doesn’t change anything about _them._

So Remus shouldn’t say anything about this either. He shouldn’t. “Cool, cool,” he nods, trying his best to seem nonchalant. “Cool name. Very, very cool.”

“What’s going on?” Sirius says, frowning. “Is everything okay?”

“Definitely,” Remus replies, nodding his head vigorously. “I’m just—” He searches his mind, grasping for something that can explain why he’s suddenly become incredibly off-kilter. “I’m, uh, just worried for my interview tomorrow. My second Brown one.” Yes, that works, and it’s reasonable enough. “I mean, I’m obviously super grateful that Brown’s even letting me have a second interview, but given how the first one went, I’m not super optimistic about it, you know? Like, obviously, that interview was super shitty, but at least I had something in common with the guy. He was a writer too. My interviewer tomorrow’s a product designer at Apple. I don’t know _anything_ about product design.” None of these are lies, exactly—they _are_ things Remus has been worrying about for the better part of the last week, ever since Brown sent him the details of his new interviewer. They just aren’t the things Remus is grappling with right now.

Sirius seems to buy it, though. “Your first interview was just a fluke. Most interviews are normal. Honestly, most interviews are good. Besides, you don’t need to have anything in common with—what’s your interviewer’s name again?”

“Ted.”

“Right, Ted. You don’t need to have anything in common with him for the interview to be a good one. If he’s a decent interviewer, you’ll be able to have a conversation with him even if he hasn’t read a poem in thirty years.”

“Hopefully.”

“Hey, I’ve got something to take your mind off of your interview, if you want,” Sirius says. “I found this super cool sci-fi animation on YouTube yesterday—want to watch it with me?”

“Definitely,” Remus replies. Inwardly, he lets out an enormous sigh of relief—at least for the duration of the video, he has time to glue back together the broken vase that’s the current state of his mind. 

* * *

If there’s one thing Remus can be thankful for, given the circumstances, it’s that his second interview is taking place in a different Starbucks than the one he went to last time. Also, if his LinkedIn research (no, it’s not stalking, because all the information is publicly available) paid off again, the man who should be Ted is sitting at his table alone, no surly, strange teenager by his side. Instead of a suit, Ted’s wearing a bright red sweater detailed with snowflakes, which Remus takes as another promising sign. 

“Hey Remus!” Ted says, beckoning him over with a wave. “Great to meet you. Do you want anything to drink before we start? My treat.”

Remembering how the last interview where he decided to buy a drink went, Remus shakes his head. “No, that’s fine. Thank you for the offer, though.”

“Sure, sure.” Ted smiles broadly, and there’s something familiar about that—that exuberance, that liveliness, and, with a jolt, Remus realizes why Ted’s LinkedIn profile had seemed so familiar. He has a feeling that he should have realized this sooner. After all, how many Ted Tonkses _are_ there? 

“Um, sorry if this sounds weird, but are you Tonks’s dad?”

Ted’s smile stretches even wider. “I am! How do you know them? Are you one of their friends from school?”

“Um, sort of?” Remus grasps for a way to word his explanation that doesn’t make him sound unhinged. “Um, my friend Peter’s their peer leader. We, uh, kind of met at a Halloween party? I drove them and their friend Fleur back from the party?”

“Oh, you’re _that_ Remus!” Ted exclaims. “I should have known. It’s not a very common name, is it? Tonks spoke of you very highly—they said you helped them out of a tight spot at the party.”

Remus laughs awkwardly. “I’d like to think so, I guess?”

“Oh, I’m sure you did. Tonks said you were a good egg,” Ted says, somehow managing to be the only person on Earth who can say the words “good egg” without sounding like an out-of-touch television presenter. “Now, Remus, do you want to tell me a little bit more about yourself and your background?”

Remus goes through his spiel—interested in creative writing and Brown’s strong programs there, homeschooled for more years than he can count, avid fan of poetry—with Ted nodding along, jotting down notes as he goes. They work their way through five or six more questions, mostly about Remus’s specific interests at Brown, without much fanfare, save for the slightly unsettling realization that apparently _everyone_ Remus knows is connected to each other. No, the fact that the scale of the universe is both immense and minuscule all at once isn’t terrifying, why do you ask?

“Great, great,” Ted says, as Remus finishes a long-winded answer about the virtues of volunteering at a community garden. “All right, Remus, do you have any questions you’d like to ask me?”

“What made you decide to go to Brown?”

“Huh,” Ted says, leaning back in his chair. “Do you want to hear the honest answer or the administration-approved one?”

Remus can’t help but let out a laugh. “The honest answer’s fine with me.”

“Well, to be honest, Remus, it wasn’t that much of a decision,” Ted says. “Actually, when I was a high school senior, I didn’t want to go to Brown at all.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Ted replies, nodding. “My first choice was MIT. I grew up in small-town Indiana in the late ’80s, and let me tell you, no matter what people say about ‘Midwestern Nice,’ it’ll never be easy being the only Korean kid in a twenty-mile radius. I wanted to get out as soon as possible, and since I was also really into taking apart old radios and putting them back together during high school, I decided that the best way to do that was get into MIT. Seeing all of MIT’s promotional materials, reading about it in all these books and hearing people talk about how it was _the_ place to be if you wanted to build something amazing, I thought that if I could get in, I could finally feel like I belonged. I would finally fit in.”

In his heart, Remus feels a pang of familiarity. “Did you end up getting in?”

“Yes and no,” Ted says, smiling wryly. “I got deferred when I applied early action, and then they waitlisted me during regular decision.”

“That’s like the worst of both worlds,” Remus says, regretting his candidness less than a second after he speaks, but Ted only laughs.

“It was! And it sucked. MIT was my first choice by far, and I’d barely even thought about the other schools I applied to. Eventually, I narrowed it down to Caltech and Brown,” Ted explains. “I was pretty set on Caltech for a while, actually—the whole engineering schtick and all that—but my parents put their foot down and said there was no way I was going all the way to California for college. Basically, I chose Brown more because it was the default option than anything else, even though it was probably the riskier one—after all, no one thinks of Brown when they picture an engineering school. To tell you the truth, though, up until MIT finally rejected me that August, I didn’t entirely internalize that I’d be going to Brown. I just kept holding out hope for MIT—don’t do that, by the way. It just causes you so much unwarranted stress, honestly.”

Remus nods vigorously, even though he’s fairly certain that he’s already well on his way to developing a stress ulcer from college admissions. “Yeah. I just hope I get in early, you know?” he says, trying his best to sound earnest and not desperate. 

“Of course,” Ted agrees. “But Remus, don’t take this the wrong way—I didn’t think I’d end up at Brown, but I still had the best four years of my life there. Sure, I was disappointed for, oh, about half of the first day, but then I got to know everyone in my dorm and started taking amazing classes, and by the second week, I knew I’d made the right choice.”

“What was your most memorable experience at Brown?” Remus asks, entirely aware that every detail he absorbs about the wonders of Brown will only make the inevitable rejection sting harder. 

“Oh, man, that’s a tough one,” Ted replies. He furrows his brow in thought. “Honestly, I think it’d have to be the classes I took at RISD—that's the Rhode Island School of Design. One of the great things about Brown is how flexible everything is. No one will ever force you to study something you don’t want to, which allowed me to basically split my schedule between hardcore engineering classes and any art classes that seemed cool on the syllabus.”

“Too bad I can’t draw,” Remus cracks, and Ted smiles.

“Unfortunate, but not as big of a problem as you might think,” Ted replies. “I still can’t draw an eye, but I must have taken three metal sculpture classes alone by the time I graduated. To tell the truth, I think the lesson to take from this, whether you decide to take art classes or not, is to try out new things. Take a risk, you know? When I got my first product design job, they didn’t just want to hear about my engineering skills—they wanted to know about all the cool art classes I took too. And the funniest thing is, if you’d asked freshman year me what classes I was the most and least likely to take at Brown, I would have told you that art classes were at the bottom of the list.”

“Really?”

“Really. I only ended up in that first intro to sculpture class because a seminar I was planning to take filled up more quickly than I thought it would, and I wanted something to fill up my schedule,” Ted says. “But then I ended up loving the class, and I took another art class the next semester. Life works in funny ways like that. When I was your age, I didn’t think I’d end up as a Brown graduate, let alone a product designer. But you just need to keep working at it and taking hold of every opportunity that comes your way.”

Remus tries to imagine himself thirty years in the future, the same age as Ted, smiling at an interviewee from across a tiny table. Will he be the celebrated poet he dreams of becoming at night, staring up at his blue-painted ceiling? Will he have done everything on his bucket list? Or will he have a different bucket list entirely, seizing every opportunity the way Ted did?

“Do you ever regret it?” Remus asks, almost unwillingly. “You know, going to Brown instead of Caltech?”

Ted hums thoughtfully. “You know, no one’s ever asked me that before. But—no, I don’t think so. I don’t regret it. If I’d gone to Caltech, I don’t think I would have ever taken any art classes after high school, and I definitely wouldn’t have applied for jobs in product design. And maybe it’s not what I envisioned in high school—you know, building the next big software company or becoming the next Bill Gates—but I do love my job, and I love where I’ve landed in life.” He smiles wistfully. “And I wouldn’t have met my wife if I went to Caltech either.”

“Is she a Brown alum too?” Remus asks, and Ted bursts into laughter, shaking his head.

“Oh, God no,” Ted says, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. “No, she went to Cornell, and she’d just about die if she heard you say that—she’s always been much bigger on school spirit than me. No, we met at a football game, actually. During halftime, I got separated from my friends, but luckily, I managed to find a seat next to the most wonderful woman in the world. We hit it off, and we were married three years later. Call it serendipity, call it fate, but it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t gone to Brown.” 

“Wow.” Remus lets out a sigh, feeling both pensive and wistful. “I really, really hope I get in.”

“I hope you get in too, and I’ll be sure to write you the best recommendation I can,” Ted says, organizing his notes and marking down something in red ink that Remus can’t quite read. “You’re a wonderful candidate, Remus, and I’m sure that your application is incredibly strong. But just one final word of advice—even if you don’t get in, it’s not the end of the road. If you don’t take anything else away from this interview, just remember this: as long as you’re willing to take risks, there’s nothing you can’t do.”

* * *

Ted’s words linger with Remus over the next week, all the way through a middling Thanksgiving dinner and an even more middling Black Friday. (He still doesn’t understand why his mother, who patently knows that there are very few things Remus enjoys less than the commercialized hell that is Black Friday, insists on dragging him to the mall every year anyway.) In any case, by the time they leave the mall that afternoon, with three bags of clothes that Remus never asked for, it’s with Remus wondering just what risks he needs to take to be, well, more like Ted. Or happier, in general. 

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to dwell on that particular existential crisis for too long, since the moment he gets home, his phone dings with a text from Lily.

 **Lily (4:03 PM):** remus can you call?

 **Lily (4:03 PM):** i’m having

 **Lily (4:04 PM):** it’s not a crisis exactly, but

 **Remus (4:04 PM):** sure, give me a sec

He settles into his bed, pulling his comforter over his knees, and then answers Lily’s Facetime call. Lily—well, to put it lightly, does not look well. She’s in a similar position to him, her head resting on the headboard of her bed, but she looks anything but comfortable. Her eyes are rimmed with red, and when she smiles, it’s through tears. 

“Are you okay?” Remus asks gingerly, and she nods, sniffling.

“I’m getting there,” she replies. “God, Remus, I fucked up.”

“What happened?” 

“Potter asked me out,” Lily says, wincing as the words come out.

“Isn’t that a good thing? I mean, don’t you like him now?”

“Maybe? I don’t know,” Lily replies, tugging at her hair. “Well, it doesn’t matter, because I said no.”

“Wait, why?” Remus regrets asking this less than a second later when Lily breaks into tears. He sits awkwardly as she cries, wiping away her tears with the sleeve of her forest-green sweater. 

Lily sniffles, dabbing at her eyes again. “It sounds so stupid, but I’m just—I’m just not ready. God, how do I even say this?” She lets out a sigh, blinking hard. “Okay. When I told you about the Halloween dance the last time we called, I wasn’t totally honest.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sev wasn’t just following me around because of the Batman thing,” Lily says, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them. “A few weeks ago, he messaged me on Facebook—”

“Wait, I thought you said you blocked him everywhere?” Remus asks.

“Well, everywhere on Instagram,” Lily says. “Okay, okay, I _know_. That was stupid. But you just don’t unfriend people on Facebook, okay? It’s rude. Anyway, he messaged me on Facebook and said he wanted to talk. And he was nice enough about it, so I said yes, and for a while we just talked, you know? Just about school and music and clubs like we used to. It was nice. It was almost like we were friends again.”

“Well, that’s surprising.”

“Yeah, no, it wasn’t,” Lily says. “Or it wasn’t in the end. Twenty minutes later, he asked me out again, I tried to brush him off, he kept asking me out, and then I blocked him. I blocked him everywhere, and then he followed me around at the Halloween dance for half the night, asking me why I wouldn’t take him back.”

Remus winces. “God, Lily, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s my fault,” she says. “I shouldn’t have even given him a chance again.”

“No,” Remus says, shaking his head. “It’s not your fault that Sev’s an asshole who can’t take a hint.”

Lily shrugs weakly. “I guess. But yeah. That’s how my month’s been.”

“I’m so sorry,” Remus says again. “Wait, but what does this have to do with Ja—um, Potter?”

“Well, there’s obviously something wrong with my judgement, because I kept giving Sev chances when I shouldn’t have given him any. I didn’t block him on Facebook, I kept talking to him, and I couldn’t even give him a hard no.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your judgement.”

“No, there is. And that’s the problem. What if Potter turns out to be like Sev too?” Lily asks, sounding pained. “What if he turns out to be a raging asshole too? I just—I couldn’t deal with that. So I couldn’t say yes. I couldn’t. I’m not ready.”

“Does he seem like an asshole?”

“Well, no, but again, something’s obviously fucked up about my judgement, so maybe he is, actually, and I just can’t see it,” Lily replies. “Or—God, this is the other option, I guess—maybe something’s just fundamentally wrong with me. I mean, if Potter’s not an asshole, what does that make me? Some idiot who turned a decent, smart, hot guy down because she’s too scared to take a chance on a good thing. Maybe there’s just something seriously wrong with me.”

Remus shakes his head vehemently. “No, Lily. There’s nothing wrong with you, and you’re not an idiot, okay? Even if Potter isn’t an asshole, you’re allowed to not be ready. You’re allowed to not want to get into a relationship yet. You’re allowed to wait.”

“Well, I turned him down, so there’s nothing to wait for,” Lily says, smiling bitterly. 

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Lily says, not sounding very fine at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaa sorry for the late update again, but i hope this was worth it! kudos + comments fuel me!! <33


	12. december i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus and Sirius discuss a movie, meet Marlene's girlfriend, and watch the first few college decisions of the year roll out.

**r/collegeadmissions**  
Posted by u/aglowingpinknight 9 hours ago | 3.2k points

**Good luck to everyone who has decisions coming out this Friday and Saturday!**

Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Johns Hopkins, Amherst, Bowdoin, Rice, Williams, Wellesley, Wesleyan...this weekend’s gonna be a doozy. Good luck to everyone who applied! I believe in you!

* * *

“Have I ever told you about my problem with pomegranate?” Sirius asks, chewing on the end of a pen. Today, he’s clad in an oversized blue t-shirt and ratty pajama pants. Somehow, he still manages to look perfect.

“Like, the fruit?” Remus replies, furrowing his brow. “I mean, it’s not that good, and the seeds inside are kind of annoying, but I don’t hate it or anything.” 

“No, the movie _Pomegranate_ _,_ ” Sirius explains. “You know, the one that won a ton of awards at the Oscars and everything?”

“Haven’t heard of it.” Yes, Remus knows that he’s woefully unaware of pop culture, and no, there isn’t really anything he can or wants to do to change that. 

“Okay, so it’s this modern adaptation of the myth of Hades and Persephone, except Hades is a girl named Haley and Persephone’s mom’s name is Denise,” Sirius says. “So actually, it’s not really like the myth of Hades and Persephone at all, besides the fact that the main character’s name is Persephone and the director really likes the aesthetic of pomegranates.”

“That’s interesting?” 

“I mean, the aesthetic is gorgeous, and the plot is honestly solid, but the ending—I just can’t deal with the ending. Basically, the main conflict in the movie is between Persephone and Denise, because Persephone is a high schooler who realizes that she’s a lesbian and she and her mother live in a small, incredibly conservative town in rural Nebraska.”

Remus winces, reminded of every poorly written episode of _Glee._ “Please don’t tell me it’s some stereotype-ridden mess.”

“I mean, given how the myth actually goes, it’s surprising that it isn’t. The love story between Persephone and Haley is super wholesome and not unhealthy at all, and Magenta Comstock—that’s the director—actually made an effort to cast queer actors in queer roles,” Sirius replies. “The problem I have with it is Denise.”

“Oh?”

“Denise is just a terrible character. She’s supposed to just be supportive and a little bit overbearing, but it doesn’t come off that way,” Sirius says. “Like, she monitors Persephone’s phone, constantly belittles her, and when she finds out that Persephone is gay, she literally stops speaking to her completely for months. Total silent treatment.”

“That just seems like abuse,” Remus says, raising his eyebrows.

“I mean, I don’t know if I’d go as far as to—”

“It’s abuse,” Remus says, more firmly this time. “That’s controlling, cruel, and abusive.”

Sirius shrugs weakly. “I guess. I don’t know. But anyway, in the end, Persephone keeps dating Haley, goes off to college, gets super into the queer scene at Tufts, and on Christmas Eve, decides to finally call her mom again. And it’s not shown, but it’s implied that Persephone forgives her mom and they make plans to reconcile. And I don’t know, but something about that—it just didn’t sit right with me, you know? And I’m not sure why. It just didn’t.”

“Because Denise was abusive, and it didn’t feel authentic or justifiable for her and Persephone to reconcile in the end?” Remus supplies.

“Maybe. I just hated how the movie also made it seem like it was both Persephone and Denise’s fault for their relationship being bad, you know? Like, sure, maybe Persephone was ‘immature,’ but Denise was just _mean._ I just—I didn’t like it.”

“And that’s very, very valid,” Remus replies. “That sounds like a terrible way for the movie to end. Well, given that I haven’t seen it and all, of course.”

“I’m glad to hear that I’m not insane for not liking the ending,” Sirius says, a small smile spreading across his face. “Anyway, I think it might also be because of the setting I’m watching it in, you know? I mean, we’re watching it in class, and that never ends well.”

“In class?”

“Yeah, in ‘The Persistence of Mythology.’ It’s my social science senior seminar.”

“Social science senior seminar?” Remus echoes.

“Boarding school,” Sirius says, rolling his eyes. “It’s a cool class, though—we talk about the ways myths have been interpreted in the past and discuss adaptations of them today. Professor Sprout’s super chill, and we don’t really get that much homework either. The real problem is that you just can’t have a good time watching a movie when half the straight guys wolf-whistle every time Persephone and Haley even look at each other.”

“God.” Remus doesn’t enjoy his own history class very much—let’s just say that his interest in learning about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff is minimal at best—but at least he doesn’t have to be subjected to that. 

“So yeah, fun times. I mean, I like class still, usually. It’s just that James is also, like, super depressed right now because the girl he really likes turned him down, so we can’t even make fun of those guys together,” Sirius says, grimacing. “It’s been a rough go of it.”

“His crush turned him down?” Remus asks, widening his eyes and trying his best to sound surprised. 

“Yeah. They were doing some prefect patrol thing together, he asked her out, and she said no. He’s basically been down ever since,” Sirius replies. “I mean, when I say he’s depressed, he’s seriously depressed. He barely leaves the room except for, like, lacrosse practice and prefect stuff, spends all his time in bed listening to Phoebe Bridgers and Joji, and the other day, he asked me if he was a bad person.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. I think it’s mostly because the girl he likes used to date this complete asshole James and I call Snivelly—I think I’ve probably told you about him before—and when I say he’s an asshole, I mean he’s only about 2% less of an asshole than Evan, which doesn’t mean anything at all. Now, because Snivelly’s an asshole, James has decided that this means he must be a worse person than Snivelly, since why else would this girl turn him down?” Sirius lets out a deep sigh. “So that’s where we’re at. Very not fun.”

“Maybe it’s not that simple,” Remus offers. “I mean, maybe there’s something going on with her too.” At this point, Remus should stop speaking and let Sirius come to his conclusions by himself. Unfortunately, his traitorous mouth decides to keep going. “Maybe she doesn’t think she’s ready to date again yet, because her last boyfriend was racist, inconsiderate, and manipulative, and she’s scared that James will be like that too. Maybe James shouldn’t give up all hope yet.”

Sirius raises his eyebrows, looking at Remus with suspicion in his eyes. “Okay. And why do you think that?”

“I mean, it’s just a theory,” Remus adds hastily. “I mean, I don’t know anything! It’s not like I’m friends with Lily or anything. I swear, I don’t know anything.”

“I never said that the girl’s name was Lily,” Sirius says, raising his eyebrows even higher. “Though you’re right, her name _is_ Lily. And how do you know that, Remus?”

“I don’t know anything!” Remus protests, aware that he sounds entirely unconvincing. “I just threw out the first name I thought of! Look, maybe her name’s Hannah! Maybe it’s Julia! I don’t know.”

“But like I just said, her name _is_ Lily,” Sirius presses. “And your theory seems completely plausible.”

“Okay, fine,” Remus says, thunking his head down onto his desk. “Yes, I know Lily. We’ve been friends since middle school. We call basically every week.”

“And you didn’t think that was something you should tell me?” Sirius exclaims. 

“I didn’t know until last week when you told me you went to Hogwarts! And I didn’t think it mattered!” Remus says, looking up and leaning back in his chair. “I mean, it’s not like it helps with anything! It barely even tells us anything new!”

“How?”

“I mean—look, here’s my reasoning. I’ve known Lily for years, and the only things she’s said about James to me since September basically line up with what you’ve told me about him too,” Remus says. “The only other thing I know is that Lily does like James—”

“She likes James?” Sirius says incredulously. “Okay, see? That’s information that’s good to have!”

“She likes James, but I’m sure she wouldn’t be happy if you went out and just told James that she does,” Remus replies. “So we can’t _do_ anything with that information.”

“So I can’t give James a reason to be hopeful?” 

“I mean—” Remus shuts his eyes, thinking. “Okay. Here’s what you can do. You can tell him to not give up hope and to just be a good friend for Lily right now, because she might just be going through a rough patch herself. And I don’t know if that’ll change anything between them romantically or anything, but I do know that Lily needs a friend.”

“And James is a good friend,” Sirius says, nodding. “He can do that. Yeah, I’ll definitely let him know.”

“Good. And, um, sorry again about not telling you immediately that I know Lily and everything,” Remus says awkwardly.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sirius replies. “I get it. Anyway, yeah, I hope—”

Sirius is cut off by knocking on his dorm door, insistent and loud. Sighing, Sirius rolls his eyes. “Okay, sorry. Give me a sec, I should get this.”

Sirius walks out of frame, and dimly, Remus can hear Sirius’s voice mixing with a familiar, higher voice. The voices grow louder, until a few seconds later, Marlene’s face pops into frame as she walks into Sirius’s room.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just call me,” Sirius complains loudly. “You have my number.”

“I literally live five doors down from you,” Marlene replies, rolling her eyes. “It’s just more convenient.”

“More convenient—” Sirius shakes his head, his exasperation practically palpable. “Fine. What’re you here for?”

“What am _I_ here for? You were the one that wanted to meet Dorcas, remember?”

“Oh.” A sheepish look spreads over Sirius’s face. “Whoops. My bad.”

“Yes, it _is_ your bad.”

“It’s just that I’m calling Remus right now,” Sirius says, gesturing to his laptop. “See?”

Remus waves awkwardly to Marlene. “Hey.”

“Hey!” Marlene says, waving back enthusiastically. “Okay, Remus, do you want to meet Dorcas?”

“Um, sure?” Remus replies, feeling incredibly confused.

“Marlene!”

“What, Sirius? He said yes.”

“Sorry, just a question—who’s Dorcas?” Remus asks tentatively. 

“See? He doesn’t even know who Dorcas is,” Sirius says. “Marlene, can’t you just come back later?”

“Or I could just tell him who Dorcas is,” Marlene replies. “Okay, Dorcas is my girlfriend. She’s great. Sirius wanted to meet her. Do you want to meet her too? There. That’s all there is to it.”

“Um,” Remus starts. There are a number of questions running through his mind—namely, the fact that Sirius told him Marlene was closeted the last time Remus saw her, as well as the fact that she and Sirius are (still?) fake-dating—but given the wide smile on Marlene’s face, he figures that these are questions best saved for later. “Yeah, sure.”

“Great,” Marlene replies, scrolling through her phone. “Okay, I’ll call her now.” 

The familiar FaceTime tone sounds, and a moment later, Marlene’s screen fills with the face of a girl with warm brown skin who must be Dorcas, her curly hair pulled up in a bun and her dark eyes shining. Just like Marlene, she’s absolutely gorgeous. 

“Hi!” Dorcas says cheerily. “Nice to meet you—Sirius?”

“Nope, um, I’m Remus,” he says. “That’s Sirius.”

“Hey,” Sirius says, waving. “Yep, I’m Sirius. That’s, um, my friend Remus.” Right, friend. That’s what they are. Friends.

“Nice to meet you both, then,” Dorcas says. “Right, so I’m Dorcas. I go to Beauxbatons Academy down in Connecticut, and Marlene and I are dating.” She smiles as she says Marlene’s name, and it’s plain as day that she cares for her girlfriend deeply. 

“How did you guys meet?” Remus asks.

“At Model UN, actually,” Marlene replies. 

“Wait, _that_ Model UN conference?”

Marlene nods. “Yeah, we met in committee, and we just really hit it off. We started texting, and then we started calling, and, well, now we’re here.” She smiles at Dorcas, a small, private smile. “Honestly, I think this has probably been one of the best months of my entire life.”

“Mine too,” Dorcas replies softly. “Do you know when you meet someone, and it feels like no one has ever understood you more, and no one will ever understand you more? That’s what it feels like with you, Marlene.”

Slowly, it dawns upon Remus that he and Sirius probably shouldn’t be here for this conversation—or even if they should, it doesn’t feel as though they’re the intended audience for it. He feels like an intruder, peeking out from behind a curtain and wondering when he’ll be able to creep out the back door. 

Sirius seems to realize this too. “It was really nice meeting you, Dorcas,” he says loudly, and Marlene startles, as if she had forgotten that anyone else was in the room too.

“Yeah, super nice to meet you guys,” Dorcas smiles. “Hopefully I’ll be able to come up to Boston in a few weeks, and maybe we’ll all meet up?”

“Definitely,” Sirius nods.

Once Marlene (and by extension Dorcas) have left the room, Sirius flops down onto his bed with a sigh. “So yeah, that’s what’s going on right now,” Sirius says. “Marlene and Dorcas are dating.”

“I thought Marlene didn’t want to come out yet?” Remus asks. “And weren’t you guys dating? Well, dating and not dating, but—”

“She didn’t until three weeks ago,” Sirius replies. “That was when Dorcas asked her out, and also when her mom started watching _Will and Grace_ and decided that gay people were cool, actually.”

“Wait, seriously?” Remus can’t help but laugh. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Well, it might be, but apparently her mom texted Marlene yesterday and asked her what the Trevor Project was, so I guess it’s working,” Sirius shrugs. “Now, we’re broken up—if you can ever even really break up if you weren’t actually together—and Marlene thinks that she’s going to try coming out to her parents over the holiday break.”

“Wow.” Remus sits back heavily in his chair. “Good for her. I hope it goes well.”

“Yeah,” Sirius says, his lips twitching in an imitation of a smile. Something about it looks artificial, though, almost pained.

“Are you okay?” Remus asks carefully.

“I guess,” Sirius replies, shrugging. “I just—I mean, obviously, I don’t really care that we ‘broke up’ or anything, besides the fact that my mom might be annoyed since she really liked Marlene and everything. I just wish I could come out one day to my own parents. It’s great that Marlene feels comfortable enough to actually talk to her parents about this now, but I can’t do that. Not with my dad. And I just wish I could.”

“Maybe one day they’ll come around? I mean, Marlene’s mom seems to have.”

Sirius shakes his head firmly. “They won’t. Not in this lifetime.” He sits quietly for a moment and then forces a smile to his face. “But it’s fine. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Sirius, are you sure?” Remus asks, worrying his lip. “I’m here to talk about this if you want to. I’m always here to talk.”

“I’m sure,” Sirius says, nodding. “I’m sure.”

* * *

For the next few days, Remus and Sirius don’t talk about it. They talk about Joji’s latest album, the newest Smash character, and a meme compilation of “guys who are down bad” on Twitter. They don’t, however, talk about Sirius’s family. It would be Remus’s primary worry save for the fact that early decision results for Brown come out in less than a week, which is undeniably the far more pressing anxiety (and also undeniably the far more selfish one).

This worry is only heightened when he wakes up on Saturday morning at an ungodly hour, the result of his cell phone ringing so loudly it almost gives him a headache.

“Hello?” he says fuzzily as he picks up Lily’s FaceTime call, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

“I GOT IN! I GOT IN, I GOT IN, I GOT IN!” Lily screams, jumping up and down. Remus winces, holding his phone farther away from his face. “Sorry. Remus, I got into Wellesley!”

“Congratulations!” Remus exclaims, genuinely sincere. He knows how long Lily has wanted to go—he still has the text message transcripts of their conversation from the day Lily first toured Wellesley. There were many exclamation points and keysmashes, as well as declarations of “THIS IS THE PRETTIEST SCHOOL ON EARTH.” 

“I seriously can’t believe it,” Lily says, shaking her head. “Okay, here’s what the letter says: Dear Lily, Congratulations! Based on your outstanding academic record and contributions to your school and community, the Board of Admissions is delighted to offer you—” Suddenly, she bursts into sobs, tears streaming down her face.

“Lily?” Remus asks tentatively. “Are you okay?”

“I’m just so happy,” she says through sobs. “God, Remus, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so happy before. It’s like everything I was worried about just disappeared, you know? And I know it’s not permanent, but—God. I’m just so happy. And I can’t believe it.”

“You deserve it,” Remus assures her. “You deserve this more than anything.”

“Thank you,” Lily says, smiling through tears. “God. Like, neither of my parents even went to college. And now I’m going to Wellesley, where _Madeleine Albright_ and _Hillary Clinton_ went. I mean, that’s insane!”

“Have you told your parents yet?” Remus asks, and Lily’s eyes widen.

“I should probably do that. Okay, talk to you soon!” Lily waves a hasty goodbye, and then the line cuts off, leaving Remus alone with his thoughts.

He’s happy for Lily. He’s unbelievable happy for her. But on the other hand, he’s now only even more worried for his own decision in just a few days. Will he be able to feel that same, pure joy? Or will his tears be ones of hopelessness and anger? 

Sisyphus is almost at the top of the mountain, he thinks, and all there’s left to do is watch the boulder topple—one way or another, it will fall.

When Sirius calls him that afternoon, Remus is grateful for a distraction. Unfortunately, it doesn’t prove to be a very good one, since the moment Remus picks up, Sirius says, “Okay, go to the results channel in AAC.”

“The results channel in AAC? Why?” 

“MIT comes out today,” Sirius says. 

“But neither of us applied to MIT?” Remus says, confused. 

“Yeah, but watching results come out is kind of exciting, you know? It’s like watching a high-speed chase in a movie. I mean, we don’t have to watch if you don’t want to, but—” 

“We can watch,” Remus says, even though he doesn’t particularly want to. The only impact he sees this having is an acute increase in his anxiety levels. 

“Great. Okay, are you watching the channel?”

“Yep.” Though only questionably out of free will.

“Okay, results come out in a minute,” Sirius says. “It’s at 3:14 P.M., because this is MIT and they really like to think of themselves as that quirky girl who still posts things like ‘rawr xD’ on Twitter.”

“Fun times,” Remus says sarcastically. 

“And it's James’s sense of humor exactly,” Sirius replies. “I'm waiting for him to text too—God, I hope he gets in. Okay, less than ten seconds left.”

Sure enough, a few moments later, the first result trickles in: a deferral. Remus winces, hoping desperately that he won’t have to type the same message—sad face and all—in the same channel on Thursday. “Oof.”

“Yeah, expect to see a lot more of those,” Sirius says. “MIT basically defers somewhere around 60 to 70% of their early applicants.” Sure enough, at least eight more deferrals follow, as well as two rejections.

“Well, I’m glad I didn’t decide to apply to MIT,” Remus comments, thanking God that his father never pushed him to do this one thing, at least. “Does _anyone_ get in at all?”

As if the universe is determined to make Remus eat his words, the next result is an acceptance, declared in all-caps. 

Sirius smirks. “Yes, they do, apparently. Wait, fuck, James just sent me a video. Want to watch it with me? I think it’s his decision reaction.”

“Sure.”

Sirius clicks open the video on his laptop, filmed vertically and with the unmistakable fuzzy tint of an iPhone. On screen, James is crouching over a laptop, an older Indian man and woman that must be James’s parents huddled by his side.

“Are you ready?” James’s father asks, and James nods.

“I’m ready,” James says, sucking in a deep breath and closing his eyes. “Okay, three, two, one.” 

For a moment, the video is silent as all three Potters stare determinedly at the screen. Then, a moment later, James’s parents burst into cheers. 

“Oh my God, I got into MIT,” James breathes, smoothing back his hair with his hands and shaking his head in disbelief at the words on his screen. “I got into MIT! I got into MIT! I got into _MIT_!” A second later, the video cuts off, the phone apparently having flipped over from James’s sheer excitement. 

“Thank God,” Sirius says. “Honestly, if James couldn’t get in, I don’t know anyone that could. I mean, he got a letter of rec from the head of one of MIT’s labs.”

“Wow,” Remus replies. “Well, tell him congrats from me.”

“Definitely will,” Sirius says, nodding. “By the way, when does Brown come out again?”

The one topic Remus really, _really_ does not want to talk about right now. “Next Thursday,” Remus says, sighing. “So, way too soon.”

“Wait, Yale comes out on the same day!” Sirius exclaims. “Do you want to open decisions together?”

He should say yes. If they both get in, they could celebrate together, and if they both get deferred or rejected, at least commiseration is always better with a friend. But then there’s the other case—one of them gets in, and the other doesn’t—and as much as Remus doesn’t want to think about it, he knows that it’s far more likely for Sirius to get in and for Remus to be rejected. And if that happens, he doesn’t know how he’d even be able to begin to put on a brave face and watch as everyone else celebrates. 

“Actually, I think I’m going to just open it by myself,” Remus says. “I’ll probably take a super long nap before, and hopefully I’ll wake up after decisions have already come out."

“That’s valid,” Sirius nods. “Okay, we can talk about our results afterwards, then?”

“Definitely,” Remus replies, even though he has a sinking feeling that if they do, there’s a very good chance that it won’t go well. 

* * *

That night, Sirius hangs up early, right after dinnertime, claiming that he has an essay on _Hamlet_ that he needs to finish writing. As a result, when Remus receives an extraordinarily long Discord message from Sirius about an hour after they’ve ended their call, he clicks on it with curiosity.

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:02 PM)  
fucking hell. my dad just called and he told me he cancelled my bank account because i’m “not responsible enough.” i don’t have any money anymore, not even the stuff i saved from last summer. it’s all money that I WORKED FOR, and now it’s fucking gone. i didn’t even do anything wrong. he’s just mad because i didn’t answer my mom’s call quickly enough last night because i was STUDYING FOR A PHYSICS TEST, so he decided to spend fifteen minutes screaming at me for being “irresponsible and immature.”

and i can’t even go to james’s house for winter break anymore. i just found out they’re going to delhi because his cousin’s getting married, and james forgot to tell me until TONIGHT. and dumbledore won’t let anyone stay over at hogwarts for three weeks anymore because of what happened last year with the stupid party the seniors threw. so i have to go home. but i can’t spend THREE WHOLE WEEKS at home, especially without any money of my own. i seriously can’t.

i’m trapped, emmy. i’m fucking trapped, and i have no way out.

 **moony** (Today at 8:04 PM)  
um  
was this supposed to be for me?

 **padfoot** (Today at 8:04 PM)  
shit  
sorry  
ignore that

Less than a moment later, the message is gone, but it weighs on Remus nonetheless. More than anything else, what worries Remus is the desperation in Sirius’s message. They’re the words of someone who’s being buried alive, and the shovel is just too far away for them to reach. For the first time, Remus doesn’t just feel worried for Sirius—he feels genuinely scared. 

Emmy. The message was meant for Emmy—Emmeline or “sapphic charms,” then, the AAC admin and Sirius’s friend. Remus tries not to feel hurt that the first person Sirius thought to talk to was Emmeline and not him, and instead dashes off a quick message to her.

 **moony** (Today at 8:07 PM)  
hi  
this is sapphic charms right?

 **emmy** (Today at 8:16 PM)  
lmao you can just call me emmeline or emmy

 **moony** (Today at 8:17 PM)  
oh okay  
hi emmy

 **emmy** (Today at 8:17 PM)  
hey  
so what’s up?

 **moony** (Today at 8:18 PM)  
um so sirius  
sent me a message  
that i think was meant for you  
it was kind of concerning

 **emmy** (Today at 8:18 PM)  
what did he say?

 **moony** (Today at 8:19 PM)  
his dad cancelled his bank account  
he’s being forced to go home over winter break  
he was really upset

 **emmy** (Today at 8:20 PM)  
oh god  
okay, so how much do you know about his family?

 **moony** (Today at 8:21 PM)  
i know he doesn’t get along with his dad  
and i saw him argue with his mom once  
it...wasn’t pretty

 **emmy** (Today at 8:24 PM)  
okay, so you probably know some of this already  
but just in case  
basically, his home life isn’t the best, to say the least  
for as long as i’ve known him, which has been the past two years, he’s been arguing with his dad  
and it’s honestly not sirius’s fault, from what i can tell  
his dad just manages to somehow be super controlling and neglectful at the same time  
his relationship with his mom is more up and down, in comparison  
actually, to make this easier, i can probably give an example  
so last winter, i was visiting nyc   
actually, this will probably be easier if we call  
are you okay with that?

The Remus of three months ago would have demurred and tried to find a way out—after all, why would he want to call a college student he barely knows, especially when they could just type instead? The Remus of now, though, is at least a little braver, so after about a minute of consideration, he decides that he might as well say yes.

 **moony** (Today at 8:29 PM)  
that works

Emmy, it turns out, is a Filipina girl with close-cropped dark hair and cat-eye glasses. Despite being dressed in candy cane-patterned pajamas, she manages to give off the impression that she could beat John Cena in an arm-wrestling contest. 

“Basically, last year, around this time, I went down to NYC to visit my girlfriend, Hestia, who goes to Columbia,” Emmy starts. “Hestia, for whatever godforsaken reason, loves going to dumb college parties, so one night, she dragged me out of the apartment and made me go with her to her friend’s apartment on the Upper West Side.”

“Sorry, um, is this relevant?” Remus asks, and Emmy sighs.

“Yes, I promise this is relevant. Anyway, the party was annoyingly huge, and not all the people there were Columbia students. Most were still probably in college, though, so imagine my surprise when someone that looked a lot like Sirius popped up, asking me if I wanted a drink.”

“Of course Sirius goes to college parties,” Remus says, rolling his eyes. 

Emmy shrugs. “I mean, it’s not just a Sirius thing. It’s a rich teenager who lives in New York thing, but anyway. It was a super weird coincidence at first, so I figured it couldn’t be him, but then I started actually talking to him. After less than a minute, I was sure it was Sirius, because he had some really strong opinions on representation in media.” 

Remus smiles. “That’s Sirius.”

“Yeah. Well, he was already way past wasted at that point, so I tried to basically drag him over to the couch and force him to drink tons of water. I listened to him babble about Mitski and quantum positioning for two hours. Finally, around two in the morning or so, the party basically ended, and I told Sirius I could drive him home if he gave me his address. And do you know what he said?”

“What’d he say?” Remus asks, feeling as though he doesn’t quite want to know the answer. 

“He said he couldn’t go home, because if he did, his dad would be angry. And I told him that no, it would be fine, and I could help him get home without his dad noticing. And then he said that his dad wouldn’t be angry because he was going home drunk, but because he was going home at all. He said that he and his dad had an argument that afternoon, and his dad told him to get lost and that he didn’t want to see Sirius until the morning. Sirius said that he’d wandered around in the city for a while until he managed to find a Starbucks to hang out in, and then a guy tried to pick him up and took him to that party. Keep in mind, this was in _December_. It was freezing outside, and Sirius barely had a light jacket on. He didn’t even have any money with him.”

“What? That’s insane,” Remus says, sure that his jaw has dropped down to the floor by now. “Is—is that even allowed?”

“By ethical and moral standards, no,” Emmy says. “Probably not by legal standards either. I mean, Sirius could have been in real danger, but from all accounts, his dad wouldn’t care if he got hurt at all.”

“God.” Remus shakes his head, dumbfounded. “That’s terrible.”

“Yeah. So that’s what it’s like, living in Sirius’s home,” Emmy says. “So him going home for winter break? That’s bad. That’s really, really bad—especially if he doesn’t get into Yale, by the way. You probably know about just how much he hates Yale, but he has to get in regardless. Basically, if he doesn’t want his dad to scream at him for three weeks straight, he’d better hope to God that his admissions officer loved his application.”

“I hope he gets in,” Remus says, sending up a silent prayer. “God, I hope he gets in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for clarification purposes, pomegranate is not a real movie. it’s based off of a lot of different indie films/pieces of media—props to you if you can guess which ones! 
> 
> kudos + comments fuel me! <3 also, expect ANOTHER chapter to drop tomorrow—a shorter one, but i promise, it’ll be a doozy!


	13. december ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus and Sirius see their early decision results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why is this chapter coming out today? well, because the Real-Life Brown University releases its early decision results today.

**r/collegeadmissions**   
Posted by u/twoheadedmoony 19 hours ago | 1.7k points

**The unstoppable tide of tomorrow**

Tomorrow, I’ll know where my future leads.

Logically, I know that my future isn’t predetermined just by which school I go to. If I get into Brown, I’ll be over the moon. I’ll sing and dance and hug my parents and maybe even confess my feelings to the guy I like. The last one’s not that likely, to be honest, especially since he lives hundreds of miles away, but who knows? And if I don’t get in, life goes on. I’ll submit my applications to my fifteen other schools, cry a little, and accept it. 

After all, Brown has an early decision acceptance rate that’s less than twenty percent. All logic says that I’ll get rejected, or at best, deferred. I’m not a legacy. I don’t have any connections. I don’t have any hooks. I’m just another mediocre applicant with impossible dreams.

But at the same time, I can’t even imagine _not_ getting in. Maybe it’s just hubris, and I’m just Sisyphus, trying fruitlessly to push the boulder up the mountain again. I’ve tried to reason with myself, with that part of my brain that insists upon being annoyingly, unreasonably hopeful. I’ve tried out the rejection simulator (thank you to whoever made that, by the way) and read the “we’re very sorry to inform you” on the webpage with Brown’s seal ten, maybe twenty times, to prepare for tomorrow. 

But I’m just so fucking hopeful. Despite everything, that little voice in my head asks, well, why _can’t_ you get in? One of my closest Internet friends got into her dream school, Wellesley, this past weekend. The next day, she sent me a photo over text of her dressed in her new Wellesley sweatshirt, grinning and holding up a cookie cake with Wellesley’s logo on it. My closest friend IRL got into UVA yesterday. When he told me, I could practically hear the relief in his voice. Why can’t that happen to me? 

This is the worst part of college admissions. We all have to realize that we aren’t special, not at all, and even if we are, sometimes, that doesn’t matter either. You won a national science competition? Well, congratulations. The guy whose application was read before you has a dad who donated a library to the school, so you’re getting deferred anyway.

But realizing that is so, so hard. And even when you do realize that, the hope doesn’t go away. If it did, I wouldn’t be pressing inspect element on my Brown portal, trying to CTRL-F for the word “acceptance.” If it did, I would be able to sleep tonight without tossing and turning in my bed, a bottomless pit in my stomach. If it did, I wouldn’t be so fucking terrified. 

In any case, tomorrow at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time, it all comes to an end. When I click the Status Update on my Brown portal, my future will either be set in stone, or just even more uncertain.

francis4ever 205 points • 18 hours ago   
oh god i feel this so fucking hard. i’m also terrified because i think my mom expects me to get into yale tomorrow, even though i keep telling her that’s not how it works at all. i think she still thinks i’m smart, and really i’m not?? i feel like i’m faking my way through life and tomorrow will just confirm that once and for all. 

mikumikumiku 121 points • 16 hours ago  
are you me because i feel the exact same way

piscespiccolo 149 points • 17 hours ago   
Why are we even doing this? Why do we keep feeding into this terrible culture when we all know it’s terrible? I can’t say anything because I literally threw up last Thursday when I got deferred by Princeton, but still. (Hi Dean Richardson please accept me.)

bumbletiger 97 points • 16 hours ago   
someone else also does that inspect element thing? haha...oh no. i totally haven’t tried doing that on my yale portal. (does it work? i tried it on chrome but nothing came up, so i’m thinking of downloading firefox to see if that helps? is it true that you can find out if you’ve been deferred, accepted, or rejected in the html?)

 **r/collegeadmissions**   
Posted by u/misomisosoup 17 hours ago | 428 points

**To everyone waiting on Brown/Yale/Penn/etc.**

How are you planning to spend your time before results come out? Personally, I’m going to listen to my admissions playlist on Spotify and hope the good vibes come to me.

beachboi29 84 points • 17 hours ago   
Try to ignore it tbh. No use stressing anymore imo

valentinatrix 70 points • 16 hours ago   
it sounds really stupid but i’ve been listening to these subliminals on youtube with titles like “listen to achieve your dreams” and stuff like that. crossing my fingers that it works?

musicalem 55 points • 16 hours ago   
I have a whole plan! I’m going to go to Stop and Shop with my mom and buy a cake. It’s going to be one of those huge sheet cakes that are super sweet and have a ton of frosting. That way, no matter what happens, at least I’ll have cake. 

myheartgoesdokiforu 37 points • 14 hours ago   
drop the spotify playlist op

misomisosoup 21 points • 12 hours ago  
Here: <https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2D9TjOsoLF97ejnuLqtwJS>

twoheadedmoony 31 points • 14 hours ago   
i’m going to sleep. hopefully, i’ll wake up at 7 pm exactly so all i have to do is pull off the band-aid. 

**Admissions Advice Corner** **  
****#announcements | Server upkeep + general information!**

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 3:30 PM)   
@everyone today, brown, yale, and penn will be releasing their early decision/restrictive early action results! to those of you anxiously awaiting your decisions, the team at AAC wishes you the best of luck tonight. decisions will be released on your portals at 7 pm est. 

no matter what happens this evening, you should know that we’re proud of you. it takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there and apply to these schools, which are high reaches for everyone. know that you are not defined by the decision you receive; no matter what, you are still strong, capable, intelligent, and worthy. 

finally, feel free, as always, to share your results in #admissions-decisions! good luck once again—we’re cheering you on!

 **Admissions Advice Corner** **  
****#general | Please remember to visit #rules if you’re new and role yourself appropriately!**

 **peterparker** (Today at 6:37 PM)   
Does anyone else feel like they’re going to throw up?

 **quitecontrary** (Today at 6:38 PM)   
honestly that’s such a mood   
i barely slept last night at all   
penn just reject me already   
there’s no way i’m getting into wharton

 **catie** (Today at 6:40 PM)   
is anyone else refreshing their portal LMAO   
or is it just me

 **quitecontrary** (Today at 6:41 PM)   
it’s not just you, i’ve been doing it all day

 **moony** (Today at 6:45 PM)   
god i hate this

 **tiraMISU** (Today at 6:47 PM)   
Is anyone else waiting on yale?

 **catie** (Today at 6:47 PM)   
me   
handsome dan please love me back :(

 **sylvanprincess** (Today at 6:49 PM)   
come join the penn discord if you aren’t in it already! we’re going to be opening our decisions together there!!

 **quitecontrary** (Today at 6:50 PM)  
@sylvanprincess send the link?

 **sylvanprincess** (Today at 6:50 PM)   
check your dms!

 **catie** (Today at 6:50 PM)   
ten more minutes UGHHHHHH

 **Admissions Advice Corner** **  
****#admissions-decisions | Post the results of your applications here!**

 **amy [ucla ‘22]** (Today at 6:58 PM)   
good luck to everyone waiting on ivies today!! and remember, if you don’t get in, you can always join me at the best school in the nation :D 

**tiraMISU** (Today at 7:01 PM)   
ASDFGHJKL I’M CRYING   
I GOT INTO YALE   
I GOT INTO MY DREEAM SCHOOL I’M SOBBIN G   
THANK YOU TO WHOEVER MADE THIS HAPPEN   
I’M SO FUCKING HAPPY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 7:01 PM)   
congratulations!!

 **catie** (Today at 7:01 PM)   
deferred by yale oopsie   
not a surprise tbh, we move on now

 **amy [ucla ‘22]** (Today at 7:01 PM)   
sending all my love to you <3

 **peterparker** (Today at 7:02 PM)   
Deferred by Penn. :/ Oh well.

 **amy [ucla ‘22]** (Today at 7:02 PM)   
i’m so sorry my friend :(

 **quitecontrary** (Today at 7:03 PM)   
straight-up rejected by penn lmaoooooo love that

 **amy [ucla ‘22]** (Today at 7:03 PM)   
:( i’m sorry. they didn’t deserve you

 **sylvanprincess** (Today at 7:03 PM)   
WTF I GOT INTO PENN M&T   
I’M SHAKING

 **amy [ucla ‘22]** (Today at 7:03 PM)   
bro m&t is insane!!!! congrats!!!!!

 **starman, but like, COOLER** (Today at 7:04 PM)   
got into yale

 **amy [ucla ‘22]** (Today at 7:04 PM)   
CONGRATS SIRIUS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!   
YOU AMAZING IDIOT YOU DESERVED THIS

 **starman, but like, COOLER** (Today at 7:05 PM)   
thanks amy lol

 **sapphic charms ✧･ﾟ: * [mit ‘23]** (Today at 7:06 PM)   
congratulations sirius <3 <3 <3 you deserve this more than anyone else i know, and no matter where you go, be it yale or another school, you’re going to do incredible things.

_Dear Remus,_

_After a careful evaluation of your credentials, the Board of Admission has voted to postpone a final decision on your application. During the coming months, we will review the materials you have already submitted, as well as any additional credentials you may wish to send to us…_

**padfoot** (Today at 7:24 PM)   
hey remus! how’d it go?

 **Lily (7:27 PM):** any news from brown?

 **Peter (7:30 PM):** Hey Remus, wishing you a late good luck tonight! Hope it all goes/went well! Let me know when you’re free to hang out! We should check out that ocean monument!

 **Peter (7:35 PM):** I’m up for a game or two of League too, if you are! 

**Peter (7:42 PM):** Or Terraria! We haven’t used the server much yet, right?

 **padfoot** (Today at 7:45 PM)   
remus, no matter what happened, don’t beat yourself up about it   
college admissions is so fucking wack and unpredictable   
i have a friend who got into wharton rd but flat-out rejected by washu ed   
it never makes sense   
you’re still amazing and funny and one of the best writers i’ve ever met   
and no college admissions officer can take that away from you   
and i hope you know that

 **Lily (8:23 PM):** are you up for a call? i don’t have much homework tonight

 **Lily (8:25 PM):** and i finally have time to watch watchmen with you! marley convinced me to check out the trailer (finally) yesterday and it looked pretty good actually! 

**Lily (8:26 PM):** even if zack snyder directed it lol

 **padfoot** (Today at 10:39 PM)   
remus? are you online?

 **Lily (10:57 PM):** remus? did you fall asleep?

 **padfoot** (Today at 11:32 PM)   
anyway, i hope you’re doing all right   
hope we can call tomorrow <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> credit for the brown university deferral letter to, well, brown university.
> 
> kudos + comments fuel me! <3


	14. december iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus has a long-awaited talk with his father, submits some college apps, and worries.

Remus doesn’t cry. 

That doesn’t mean he never gets sad, and it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care. He just—doesn’t cry.

The analytical, armchair psychologist part of his brain would probably tell him that this reaction is a reflection of toxic masculinity, a culture that claims “boys don’t cry” and conflates toughness with “manliness.” Maybe Remus doesn’t cry because he was socialized into never showing weakness, for fear that any weakness would be beaten out of him by the standards of society. 

And that might be part of it. But Remus knows that isn’t the entire reason.

To be truthful, a large part of why Remus doesn’t cry is just that crying is—messy. When you cry, you have to figure out what you’re going to do with all those tears: tissues or sleeves? How do you hide reddened eyes? What do you do when the salt from your tears starts to sting your cheeks? And what happens if you can’t stop crying, even when you want to? 

So he doesn’t cry. Except—there are tears dripping down his cheeks right now, certainly not out of his own volition, and they keep coming out. He’s crying, for the first time in years and years. 

Because it’s just all so _unfair._ He spent months writing and revising these essays, hoped and dreamed and prayed, and he still didn’t get in. He wanted so, so badly to get in, but the wanting did nothing in the end. 

(And maybe that’s the most painful lesson of all: learning that wanting doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t matter how much you want something or someone, because if they don’t want you back, you might as well have never wanted them at all.)

For one brief moment, he wonders if it was all a dream. It feels enough like one, after all—his head is hazy, and everything, as far as he can see, is cloudy. Yes, the logical explanation is that his eyes are stinging with tears, but maybe, just maybe, it didn’t even happen at all. 

Maybe he imagined clicking on the bright red status update button on his Brown portal the moment he woke up from his uncomfortable nap, hair sticking to his forehead from stress-induced sweat and hands shaking from nerves. Maybe he imagined reading and rereading that one word over and over again, “postpone,” as if postponement wasn’t merely a delay of the inevitable. Maybe he imagined the feeling of his heart sinking, the moment the boulder began tumbling down the hill and he knew, once and for all, that he, unlike Sisyphus, could never find joy or hope in failure. 

Fueled by this impulse, he decides to check his portal once more. Yes, it might be hours past the official release of results, but maybe, just maybe, he misread. Maybe he did get in.

But no, when he clicks on that status update button again, all he sees is that now-familiar email, the same words that seem to be permanently playing in his mind on repeat. Nothing can change what has now become an inevitability.

It is, to put it lightly, absolutely soul-crushing. But he knows that’s this—the dull pain of the unresolved dream—isn’t the only reason it hurts so much either. He knows that it would hurt less if Sirius, Lily, or Peter—even just one of them—had gotten deferred too. It wouldn’t take all the pain away, of course, but it would have dulled it a bit. It would have helped him feel less like this shame, this anger, this sadness is one for him to bear alone. 

But they got in. They got in, and Remus didn’t. 

And it makes him feel truly terrible, but seeing Sirius’s messages in the server—how he can say that he got into _Yale,_ for fuck’s sake, so casually, almost arrogantly—makes Remus want to scream. Even though Remus knows, logically, that Sirius isn’t trying to be arrogant, that he simply genuinely, truly, _does not want to go to Yale,_ it still hurts. It hurts with the sting of a fresh paper cut that refuses to heal. 

To top it all off, he has at least twenty messages from Sirius alone at this point—nearly every minute, his phone buzzes with yet another—but he can’t bear to bring himself to actually reply. All the messages are kind and supportive, but they’re just as painful as they would be if they were incredibly cruel instead. The only thing he can do is ignore them. 

Not for the first time, Remus thanks God that Discord doesn’t have read receipts. He can talk to Sirius later, once he no longer feels as though his intestines have been removed from his body mouth-first. 

He does, however, reply to Lily and Peter—“not good,” he writes, and leaves it at that. He assumes they’ll understand what he means, and if they don’t, he can’t be bothered to elaborate. Then, he gives himself the liberty of flopping into bed, lying face-down on his pillow, and definitely not crying. (That’s a lie.)

* * *

Fridays mean that Remus a) has a light class load, b) has a whole weekend to do his homework, and c) can spend nearly his entire day watching _30 Rock_ in bed without feeling too guilty about it. Is watching Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin parody _The Dark Knight Rises_ a productive use of his time? No. Does it make him feel any better? Not really. Is it a good way to fill up the wide stretches of time until he stops feeling like a complete and utter loser? Yes. 

He’s just finished watching his sixteenth episode of the day when a light knock sounds on his bedroom door, and he lets out an exasperated sigh. He’s spent most of the day avoiding his parents by either pretending to be napping or, when his mother calls for him to come down for food, yelling back that he isn’t hungry. The past three times, it’s worked. 

This time, though, the knocking only grows louder and more insistent. Finally, Remus pauses the episode, pushes himself up onto his pillow and reluctantly calls, “Come in, Mom.”

When the door creaks open, though, it’s not his mother who enters. Instead, it’s his father, whose face bears a concerned look reminiscent of someone who’s just learned that the polar ice caps are melting. 

“How are you, Remus?” his father asks gingerly, sitting down on the edge of Remus’s bed. That worried look is still on his face. “We missed you at lunch. Your mother saved you some lentil soup.”

“I’m fine,” Remus says, nodding vigorously. “Good, yeah. I’ll eat—later.”

“Good, good. I was just wondering how your results went. Brown early decision, right?”

Remus sits up so quickly his laptop almost falls off his lap. As he rushes to adjust it, the paused episode of _30 Rock_ unfortunately begins playing again. They’re treated to Tracy Morgan screaming in pain after burning his hand on a Benihana grill for an uncomfortably long two seconds until Remus is finally able to find the space bar on his laptop and re-pause the episode. He winces, trying to gauge his father’s face for any sign of disapproval before figuring that he should probably deal with the other problem at hand first. “Okay, wait, how do you know about that?”

“Well, you’ve been talking about it every day,” his father replies, shrugging.

“Not to you,” Remus mumbles. 

“What?” His father moves closer to Remus on the bed. “You talked about it the other night at dinner—Wednesday night, you told your mother how the results were coming out soon when she asked how things were going with your applications.”

“Oh. I didn’t know you were listening.”

“I was sitting at the same dinner table, wasn’t I?” His father rubs his temples, sighing. “But I suppose that’s besides the point. So, how’d it go? Did you get in?”

“Well, am I throwing a party in here?” Remus says, trying to sound light but unable to stop his voice from cracking. “What do you think, Dad?”

“Oh, Remus, I’m so sorry. But rejection’s not the end—”

“I didn’t get rejected. I got—deferred.” The word sticks in his throat, feeling like a lodged boulder. 

“Oh!” Strangely enough, his father almost seems to brighten. “Well, that’s not so bad. That means you have a chance, don’t you?’

“If you knew anything about college apps, you’d know I don’t,” Remus says, tears welling up in his eyes again. “Barely anyone who gets d-deferred gets in.”

“But people get in,” his father presses. “Look, Remus, of course I know things about college applications. I’ve done my research. You write a letter of continued interest, you email your admissions officer, you get back in touch with your interviewer and ask them to vouch for you. You’ve still got a chance.”

Remus lets out a short, bitter laugh. “You don’t really believe that.”

“What? Remus, where on Earth is this coming from?”

“You’ve never believed in me,” Remus says, barely able to get the words out. “You never have, so why would you think I’d have a chance of getting into Brown now? You probably don’t even think I know how to use the quadratic formula. You think I’m a disappointment.”

“Of course I think you can use the quadratic—”

“And you’re never proud of me,” Remus continues, unable to stop now. “God, even if I did get into Brown, you’d use it as proof that I should have tried for Harvard or MIT or something.”

“Remus, you’re my son. I love you.”

“Well, yeah, I know you love me, but you’re not _proud_ of me, and you’ve never _believed_ in me. And I know—I know about that night, when I was in the hospital? When you were talking to Mom, and you told her that you didn’t think I could handle anything beyond ‘basic algebra,’ whatever that was supposed to mean? When you tried to get me to take that stupid Thomas Jefferson entrance exam while I was on my third round of _chemo,_ all to fuel your own ego? Yeah, I heard all of that. I heard _all_ of it. And I know that’s the reason you never let me go to a normal high school, Dad. Because I’m not good enough. I’ll never be good enough for you. I’ll always be messing up somehow. I’ll always disappoint you.” 

The moment he finishes, Remus has the realization that he feels as though he’s been holding onto this for years. Finally, it’s out in the open. He’s never really imagined what actually saying all of this would be like, but—it feels good. Or if it doesn’t quite feel good, it feels honest. 

He has, however, imagined his father’s reaction. He’s imagined the shouting, or worse, the cold, detached denial. He braces himself for the scolding of a lifetime, but unexpectedly, there’s only silence. And then, a moment later, his father pulls Remus into a tight hug. 

“Remus, I’m so sorry,” his father murmurs. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m so sorry that I made you feel this way.”

“Yeah,” Remus says, shrugging his father off. “But I know you’re not proud of me, and I know you think I’m stupid. So sorry doesn’t really cut it.”

“Remus, look at me. I don’t think you’re stupid, and I _am_ proud of you,” his father insists. “You’re so, so smart. Sure, do I wish you liked math a little more? Of course, but—”

“Not helping.”

“But Remus, you have so many other strengths. Your poetry is wonderful.”

“You’ve read my poetry?” Remus looks up at his father, unable to fully mask his shock. It seems like the universe has unilaterally decided that today is a good day to suddenly dump a bucketful of revelations onto Remus’s lap.

“The pieces that have been published, yes,” his father replies. “And they’re all wonderful. You have a real gift for language, Remus.”

“Oh. Well, thanks, I guess,” Remus says, trying not to sound as uncomfortable as he feels. He really hopes his father never read any of the poems that Remus wrote about the binding of Isaac. (His metaphors were probably tinged with a little too much resentment.) “But—if you don’t think I’m stupid, why didn’t you let me go to regular high school? It’s because you thought I was too dumb and sick to go to Thomas Jefferson, isn’t it? And so you decided that I couldn’t go to regular high school either, because you couldn’t get _your_ way.”

“No, Remus. No.” His father pushes back his thinning hair, sighing. For the first time, Remus notices how old his father looks—not elderly, of course, but certainly aging. “It was wrong of me to try to get you to take that entrance exam while you were sick, I know. I got chewed out by your mother for a good two weeks for that. But back then, I wanted you to be like me. I would have given so much when I was in eighth grade to go to a school like Thomas Jefferson, and I wanted you to have the opportunity that I couldn’t. But you weren’t me, Remus. I realized that almost immediately, quite literally the morning after I had that conversation with your mother about the entrance exam. We aren’t the same person, and that’s fine. That’s good.” His father drapes an arm around Remus’s shoulder, pulling him into a half-hug. “Besides, I don’t think Thomas Jefferson has a particularly good poetry program anyway.”

Remus forces a small laugh. “Yeah, I guess.” He picks at the sleeve of his pajama shirt, pulling at a small thread that’s beginning to unravel. “But Dad, I don’t get it. If it wasn’t about me not going to Thomas Jefferson, why wouldn’t you let me go to a regular high school?”

“Remus, that had nothing to do with Thomas Jefferson at all,” his father says, sounding sincere. “Your mother and I were worried about your health.”

“But it wasn’t like I still had cancer or anything.”

“Well, no, but Remus, we were terrified of the complications. When the doctors told us you were finally leukemia-free, they warned us that there was a possibility that it still wasn’t the end. Do you remember all of those follow-up check-ups?”

“Yeah.” Every time, while they waited for the doctors to come back with the test results, his mother would sit with her eyes shut, hugging her purse and silently praying. He never felt less in control of his own fate than he did in those moments. 

“Primarily, those were to make sure that the leukemia didn’t recur.”

“Well, I knew that.” After all, he was the person _going_ to those follow-up check-ups. 

“But they were also a chance for us to check in with the doctors about everything else. They warned us that there could be side effects from the chemotherapy, like lung damage or heart problems, even after years and years. You could even get a different type of cancer. We were so, so worried.” His father sighs, sounding weary. “Some of the doctors told us that we could send you back to school. But one of them told us to be cautious. They told us that you might feel out of place or overwhelmed, and your mother and I—well, we didn’t want you to struggle. That doctor told us that a good alternative could be online schooling. It would be more flexible, and your mother could keep an eye on you to make sure nothing was going wrong. Remus, we were so, so worried. To tell the truth, I’m still worried.” His father’s voice is pained, as if he’s only just holding back tears. “I’m worried that you’ll get sick again. I’m worried that you won’t be okay. I’m always so, so worried for you.”

It’s the most unguarded Remus has ever seen his father. Despite the short distance between them, mere inches dividing them on the bed, and the full force of his father’s plain gaze undeniably directed at Remus, he feels almost like an intruder. He has the urge to end this conversation before things get even more uncomfortable, but he still has one question that he needs to hear the answer to. 

“So why didn’t you ask me what I wanted?” Remus asks. “Why couldn’t I decide if I could go back to school or not?”

“Remus, you were thirteen.”

“Yeah, I was thirteen, and I was also getting pumped with drugs every single day, so I think I was probably old enough to make those decisions for myself,” Remus snaps.

His father lets out another long, tired sigh. “I suppose you’re right. We should have asked you what _you_ wanted to do. And I never, ever, wanted to make you think that I wasn’t proud of you, and I’m sorry that I did.”

Remus realizes, then, that this is what he has always wanted to hear. Somewhere, almost unknowingly, he’s wished that his father could be proud of him, that his father loved Remus the way he was and the way he is. Yet it takes more than a little effort for Remus not to be contrarian for the sake of it—despite the obvious joy he feels, part of him feels pained too. The part of him that wishes his father had simply _communicated_ to him all of this, that wishes his father was consistently capable of actually speaking to Remus without being obviously condescending or horribly detached, only feels hollow.

But that’s not something that can—or will—change immediately. “I forgive you,” he says instead, trying to sound sincere. “I forgive you, Dad.”

“Thank you,” his father says softly. “And Remus, no matter where you choose to go to college—be it Brown or UVA or somewhere else—your mother and I will be proud of you. You’ll never be a disappointment.”

“You swear?”

“I swear,” his father nods. 

“What if I want to go to college somewhere super far away? What if I go to Scotland or California or something?”

“Are you going to Scotland?” his father asks, cocking an eyebrow. “Forgive me, but I don’t think you’d like it very much there. They drink an awful lot.”

“Well, no, I’m probably not going to Scotland,” Remus admits. He’s not sure how he’d handle all the rain anyway. “But what about California?”

“If you end up in California, your mother and I will still be proud,” his father says. “You’re old enough to make your own choices, and I’m old enough to realize that I should have trusted you to make those choices earlier. Just so you know, though, if you went to California, we probably wouldn’t visit you very much. Plane ticket costs and all that.”

“Fine by me,” Remus says, probably too cheerfully, but his father only laughs. 

“I should have expected that,” his father replies. He smiles, a small, almost sad smile, and hugs Remus tightly again. “You’ll make us proud, Remus. You always have.”

* * *

Remus’s family has never been a particularly religious one. Sure, he had a modified bar mitzvah, and they celebrate all the big holidays—Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Passover, and the like—but they only go to temple once in a while, and he wouldn’t be surprised if his father’s tried ham once or twice in his life. Still, he looks forward to Hanukkah, even though his family has never really been one for gifts. Latkes are great, after all, and even though he _is_ seventeen, he still gets a small joy out of lighting the menorah.

This year, though, Hanukkah isn’t particularly fun. Instead of gorging himself on latkes and applesauce, he’s sitting in bed and poring over his last few college applications, frantically rewriting supplements that are no longer adequate, given his deferral from Brown, and revising his college list. Out is Yale; in are Kenyon and Colby. He needs to make sure that the schools he’s applying to are ones he can actually _get into,_ and that means removing nearly every school on his list with a lower acceptance rate than Brown. 

Unfortunately, that means that he probably shouldn’t be applying to Pomona. 

Quite honestly, it’s hard to explain why Remus just can’t remove Pomona from his list. After all, it’s not like it has any of the usual trappings for a school that he likes: there’s no Open Curriculum, it doesn’t have a particularly long tradition of artists who sigh over walls draped with ivy, and he doesn’t know of many (or any, really) famous poets who graduated from Pomona. There’s no reason he should be applying, especially when it’s also one of the few schools he can’t reuse essays for. 

But every time he deletes Pomona from his Common App, he feels an acute sense of loss. For some inexplicable reason, he wants to go. He wants to go, even though Pomona’s acceptance rate is _seven percent,_ and the chances of Remus being part of that seven percent are frankly less than zero. 

He can’t apply. He can’t. It’s illogical, and frankly, it’s irrational. He needs to apply to a lower reach or match instead, somewhere like Oberlin or Bates. Somewhere he has an actual chance of getting into. Otherwise, he might as well be throwing wads of dollar bills into the toilet—in either case, after all, he’d just be wasting his money. 

He moves his mouse onto the “delete college” button on the Common App. He moves his mouse away. Slowly but surely, he moves his mouse back onto the button.

Okay, he can’t do this. Stretching, he decides that he’ll finally, actually pull the plug on Pomona after he takes (yet another) break. First, though, he checks Discord, hoping for a new message from Sirius.

Unfortunately, just like every day for the past week, there’s nothing. There’s been complete radio silence on Sirius’s end ever since Brown and Yale decisions came out, and, of course, ever since Remus decided to ignore Sirius for three days straight out of shame and anger. By the time Remus finally got up the nerve to message Sirius again, his status was firmly offline, and it’s stayed that way ever since.

Remus knows that it’s his own fault. If Sirius is ignoring him—and it definitely seems that way—he knows that he deserves it. He was the one who ignored all of Sirius’s supportive messages. He was the one that chose not to reply. 

He still wishes, though, that Sirius would reply to the daily messages Remus has been sending. The fact that Sirius also hasn’t been active on the AAC Discord in days is also a bit concerning, to be honest. Sure, maybe Sirius left the server after he got into Yale, but that seems unlikely. Sirius is probably at least the third or fourth most active user on the entirety of the server; once, he even bragged to Remus about how he’d sent more than 4,000 messages over the course of a month.

The easiest explanation is that Sirius is just very, very angry at Remus. Just in case there’s another reason for Sirius’s conspicuous absence from Al Gore’s Internet, though, Remus dashes off a message to Emmy. 

**moony** (Today at 2:03 PM)  
hey have you heard from sirius lately?

 **emmy** (Today at 2:04 PM)  
nope, have you?  
to be honest i’m kind of worried about him  
he hasn’t been online in a while  
and he’s at home and all that, which is never great

 **moony** (Today at 2:05 PM)  
yeah :( haven’t gotten anything from him either  
thanks for letting me know though

So either Sirius is so mad at Remus that he’s decided to ignore everyone on Discord, or something is wrong. Unfortunately, “something is wrong” is an incredibly broad category containing nearly all the possibilities behind Sirius’s extended absence from Discord, and Remus isn’t particularly good at solving mysteries. He’s never even been able to deduce the ending of a Nancy Drew novel on his own. 

Remus sucks in a deep breath, considering his options. Maybe he could text James? He doesn’t have James’s phone number, though, and he has a feeling that trying to guess his Discord tag wouldn’t work very well. Maybe Lily? But no, it’s not like Sirius and Lily seem particularly close, and besides, Remus would rather not have Lily find out that he knows Sirius—at least not yet. Marlene’s a possibility, but just like James, he has no way of immediately contacting her. 

The only real option, then, is for Remus to wait and hope that Sirius comes back online soon, and then they can go from there. In the meantime, he might as well send in some of his applications, decide what he’s going to do about Pomona, and half-heartedly watch some _30 Rock._

* * *

Four hours later, Remus has submitted his Wesleyan, Colby, and Kenyon applications, made absolutely no progress on deleting Pomona from his Common App, and watched too many episodes of _30 Rock_ to count. At this rate, Alec Baldwin will be haunting his dreams tonight. 

He’s just getting ready to start the next season (God, what is he doing with his life) when a Discord call notification—from _Sirius_ —pops up, and he rushes to pick up, his heart racing and his hands shaking. Sirius is—well, if he’s not _fine,_ at least he’s alive. Even if Remus didn’t exactly think that Sirius was dead or anything, it’s still a reassuring sign. 

“Hey,” he starts, trying not to sound too excited, but he can barely even get that out before Sirius starts speaking.

“Remus, you live in Virginia, right? Northern Virginia? Near D.C., kind of?” Sirius asks, sounding strangely breathless. 

“Um, yeah?” Remus replies, feeling incredibly confused. “I mean, not exactly near D.C., but we’re kind of close? Definitely drivable distance.”

“Okay, okay, good,” Sirius says, the relief in his voice almost palpable. “And, um, just checking, but you’re not on vacation in, like, Istanbul or Hong Kong or something, right?”

“Why would I be in Istanbul?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time one of my friends was there,” Sirius mumbles, sounding disgruntled. “Anyway, are you on vacation?”

“Nope. I’m at home. Why?”

“Okay, great,” Sirius says, completely ignoring Remus’s question. “And, just checking, you’re going to _be_ at home for the foreseeable future?”

“Probably? I mean, I’m going to Costco on Wednesday with my mom, and I need to return a textbook to the library soon—”

“Okay, yeah, you’re going to be at home. Thanks, Remus.”

“Sirius, what’s going on?” Remus asks, his head spinning. “Sirius, are you okay?”

“I mean, sort of?” Sirius says, sounding panicked again. “I mean, I’m—okay, fuck, fuck, fuck, my phone’s about to die. Okay, Remus, please don’t leave the house tonight, it’s really—” The line clicks off, and Remus is left alone with far more questions than he started with. 

Rolling out of bed and pushing himself to his feet, Remus begins pacing around his bedroom, trying to reconcile the scraps of information he’s just been given. One, for some reason, Sirius needed to make sure that Remus lived in Northern Virginia. Two, Sirius wanted to know if Remus was on vacation. Three, Sirius didn’t want Remus to leave the house.

Maybe this is some _Home Alone_ -style scenario? Maybe burglars are coming to Remus’s house unless he stays in for the night and scares them off with a combination of wit and engineering ingenuity? That seems unlikely, though, given that Sirius could have just called the police if he knew that burglars were headed for Remus’s house. Also, Remus possesses no engineering ingenuity whatsoever. 

So why would Sirius want to know where Remus lives? He’s never really given off “psycho stalker” vibes, so that’s definitely not it. There are probably easier and far less traceable ways of stalking someone anyway. But—

Maybe Sirius _is_ planning to come to Remus’s house. Not for stalking-related reasons, of course, but maybe he really is coming to Fairfax, Virginia, the most boring town on Earth. 

He shakes his head, frustrated. No, that can’t be it. Sirius must have wanted to know where Remus lives for another reason—something rational, something obvious that just hasn’t clicked in Remus’s mind yet. 

Settling back into bed, he presses play on the next episode of _30 Rock,_ chewing on his nails in contemplation as he does. Something will come to him soon, he’s sure. 

Unfortunately, even four episodes later, nothing’s clicked in Remus’s mind. He’s gone over and discarded seven different theories, all of them more ridiculous than the last. (Remus is fairly certain that aliens aren’t involved.) It seems like he’s only getting farther and farther away from the answer, whatever it is. 

Sighing, Remus decides that he should probably stop watching TV for the day and closes out of Hulu. He might as well get one of the things on his to-do list done for the day and decide, once and for all, to not apply to Pomona. 

Just as he begins typing in his Common App login, though, the doorbell rings. Glancing at the clock, Remus realizes that it’s almost 10 PM—far too late for any overambitious Jehovah’s Witness to be knocking on their door, or even for a normal mail delivery. Rolling out of bed, he grabs an old baseball bat from his closet, just in case this really is a _Home Alone_ -style situation, and creeps downstairs. Carefully, he opens the door, steeling himself to come face-to-face with a murderous burglar, or worse, an incredibly enthusiastic, conversion-minded door-to-door preacher. It’d be the perfect way to end this hellish month.

Instead of either option, though, on the other side of the door is Sirius. He’s wearing a red parka that’s far too heavy for the weather, carrying two unwieldy suitcases, and looks strangely defeated, but it’s unmistakably Sirius, impossibly handsome face and all. Remus gapes at him, feeling stunned to his core despite all the hours he spent analyzing different Sirius-adjacent theories. 

“Hi,” Sirius says, waving weakly. “Happy Hanukkah?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come find me on tumblr at alifeincoffeespoons.tumblr.com and yell at me about a) this fic, b) 30 rock, or c) the mindy project!
> 
> kudos + comments fuel me! <3


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